Addresses to the German nation. Translated by R.F. Jones and G.H. Turnbull

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"7

ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN
NATION

[Frontispiece.

JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE

AT THE TIME OF THE DELIVERY OF THESE ADDRESSES

ADDRESSES

TO THE

GERMAN NATION

/ ^ 7- F

BY

JOHANN GOTTLIEB F1CHTE

TRANSLATED BY

R. F. JONES, M.A.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA

AND

G, H. TURNBULL, M.A., PH.D.

PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

b'3.

CHICAGO AND LONDON

THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY

1922

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Printed in Great Britain by
NEILL & Co., LTD.,. EDINBURGH.

CONTENTS

.PAGE

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . • . xi

TRANSLATION

FIRST ADDRESS : Introduction and General Survey . \^ij

SECOND ADDRESS : The General Nature of the New

Education ....... 19

;' THIRD ADDRESS : Description of the New Education

(continued) .... . . 36

JRTH ADDRESS^ The Chief Difference between the
Germans and die other Peoples of Teutonic descent C. 52

FIFTH ADDRESS : The Consequences of the Difference

that has been indicated ..... 72

SIXTH ADDRESS : German Characteristics as Ex
hibited in History ...... 91

SEVI-NTH ADDRESS : A Closer Study of the Originality

and Characteristics of a People .... 108

EIGHTH ADDRESS : What is a. People in the Higher
Meaning of the Word, and what is Love of Father
land ? I30

NINTH ADDRESS : The Starting-point that Actually
Exists for the New National Education of the
Germans . . . . . m . 152

TENTH ADDRESS : Further Definition of the German

National Education ..... i6g

vii

viii ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

PAGE

£/ ELEVENTH ADDRESS : On whom will the Carrying-out

of this Scheme of Education devolve ? . .187

TWELFTH ADDRESS : Concerning the Means for our

Preservation until we attain our Main Object . 205

X

THIRTEENTH ADDRESS : The same subject further

considered ....... 223 •

FOURTEENTH ADDRESS : Conclusion . . 248

TRANSLATORS' NOTE

THIS translation is based on Vogt's edition of Fichte's
Reden an die deutsche Nation in the Bibliothek pada-
gogischer Klassiker, Langensalza, 1896.

Mr Jones is responsible for the translation of Addresses
4> 5> 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, and 14, Dr Turnbull for the remainder
and for the introduction, which is intended primarily
for the general reader. Each of us, however, has had
the benefit of the other's suggestions and criticisms.
We have endeavoured to make the rendering of the prin
cipal technical terms uniform throughout, and have
aimed at making the translation intelligible, while
keeping close to the original German.

We desire to express our deep gratitude to Prof. E. T.
Campagnac for originally suggesting the translation, for
showing the deepest interest in the work throughout, and
for reading part of the MS. Dr Turnbull wishes also to
thank Miss E. Purdie for a number of valuable comments
on the rendering of the first address.

R. F. J.
G. H. T.

INTRODUCTION

JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE was born on May 19, 1762,
at Rammenau, a little village in Upper Lusatia between
Dresden and Bautzen. His father, Christian Fichte,
married the daughter of Johann Schurich, a ribbon
manufacturer of the neighbouring town of Pulsnitz, to
whom he was apprenticed, and returned to settle with
his bride in Rammenau, where he managed to make a
living by following his trade as a ribbon-weaver. Johann
was the eldest of a family of six sons and one daughter,
and at an early age showed signs of precocious intelligence,
conscientiousness, and stubbornness.

By a fortunate accident the young Johann came under
the notice of Baron von Miltitz, a neighbouring land
owner, who took him under his protection and sent him
to be educated, first at Niederau by a Pastor Krebel,
with whom he remained for nearly five years, and then
in 1774 to the well-known school at Pforta near Naum-
burg. His patron's death early in the same year made
no difference to Fichte's education, for he received finan
cial support from the relatives and friends of the baron
until 1784, when his allowance was stopped by the latter's
widow. He remained at Pforta until 1780, when he
became a theological student first at Jena and then at
Leipzig. He did not complete his course, but spent
the years from 1784 to 1788 as a private tutor in various

Xll

ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

families, being unable to keep any post for long owing,
x/it is said, to his proud temper and his original ideas on
education. In 1788 he was a tutor at Zurich, where
he met distinguished men like Lavater, and had the good
fortune to fall in love with Johanna Rahn, the daughter
of the Inspector of weights and measures.

In March 1790, on the termination of his teaching
engagement at Zurich, Fichte went to Leipzig and, while
waiting for a suitable post, began to study Kant's philo
sophy for the first time, in order to give some lessons on
it to a pupil who had asked for them. This study revolu-_
tionized his ideas and converted him from determinism^
to a belief in moral freedom and the inherent moral
worth of man. As a result of this he took the opportunity
of visiting Kant at Konigsberg in 1791, after an abortive
journey to Warsaw where he had been engaged to act
as private tutor to a Polish family. He was warmly
received by the old philosopher, who approved of an
essay entitled Critique of all Revelation, which Fichte had
written and sent to him. This essay was published in
1792, after Fichte had gone, on Kant's recommendation,
to Danzig to act as tutor to the family of the Count of
Krockow. Owing to the publisher accidentally omitting
the author's name, the essay was taken for a work of Kant,
and Fichte's reputation was made. As a direct result of
this he was able to marry Johanna Rahn on October 22,

1793.

The tracts which the French Revolution inspired
Fichte to write at this time, and which established the
rights of the people on the basis of the inherent moral
freedom of man, increased his fame ; but at the same time
they caused moderate and conservative men to regard
him as a radical and dangerous teacher. In spite of
this, however, he was called to succeed Reinhold as

INTRODUCTION xiii

Professor of^Philosophy at Jena in 1794^ Here he won
immediate success as a lecturer, owing undoubtedly in
great measure to the vigour of his thought and to his
moral intensity and practical earnestness. His enemies,
however, especially the bigoted supporters of the tradi
tional constitution and of the established form of religion,
never ceased trying to undermine his position and to
secure his removal. They first complained that the
course of general moral lectures which he gave on Sunday
mornings was an attempt to overthrow Christianity and
to introduce the worship of reason in its stead ; but,
meeting with no success, they then attempted to turn
to his disadvantage the efforts which Fichte was making
to suppress the students' associations. Throughout these
negotiations Fichte, who saw that these associations were
productive of much harm, was animated solely by the
desire to develop and cultivate the moral and intellectual
powers of his pupils. Though again unsuccessful, his
enemies did not cease their attacks, and were at last
victorious. In an article which appeared in the Philo
sophical Journal, of which he had been joint editor
since 1795, Fichte identified God with the moral order
of the universe. Immediately his enemies raised the
cry of atheism against him ; the Saxon government
condemned the Journal and demanded Fichte's expulsion
from Jena. The Grand Duke of Weimar would probably
have imposed merely a formal censure, but Fichte would
not submit to anything that he thought encroached
upon his liberty of teaching. He unwisely threatened to
resign in case of reprimand, and his resignation was
accepted in 1799, mucn to his own discomfiture and the
delight of his enemies.

From Jena Fichte went to Berlin, where he was
welcomed by Schelling, the Schlegels, Schleiermacher,

xiv ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

and other adherents of what is called the romantic
school. The sentimental atmosphere and moral laxity
of this school, however, did not suit his austere character
and strict principles, and friendship gradually changed
to coldness and ultimately to antagonism. In 1805 he
was appointed Professor at Erlangen, but the French
victories over the Prussians at Jena and Auerstadt drove
him to East Prussia, where he lived at Konigsberg from
1806 to 1807. During his stay there he studied, amongst
other things, the writings of Pestalozzi, whose Leonard
and Gertrude he had read and approved of as early as
1788, and whose personality and teaching methods had
much impressed him at their first meeting in 1793. The
Peace of Tilsit in July 1807 enabled him to return to
^Berlin, and during the winter of 1807-1808 he disclosed
Ihis views on the only true foundation of national pro-
| sperity in the Addresses to the German Nation which he
7 delivered in the Academy building there. He also
drew up an elaborate and minute plan for the proposed
new university at Berlin, and helped in its organization,
being appointed Professor in 1810 and Rector in 1811.
The latter office, however, he resigned after holding it
for only four months, his domineering manner preventing
any close co-operation with his colleagues. In 1814 his
wife caught a fever while attending sick and wounded in
Berlin. Thanks to Fichte's devoted care she recovered,
but he was himself stricken with the same fever and died
on January 27, 1814.

Though short and thickset in build, Fichte had never
theless an imposing presence ; this he undoubtedly
owed to his sharp commanding features, his keen piercing
eyes, and his high forehead surmounted by thick black
hair. In speech and movement alike he was quick,
impetuous, decisive, and energetic. Though inclined

INTRODUCTION xv

to be too abstract and very terse, he was a splendid
orator. He tried in every way to win his audience and
to make himself perfectly clear and intelligible to them ;
his voice was always attuned to the sentiments he ex
pressed, and his delivery never lacked clearness and
precision. His discourse swept on like the course of a
tempest, rousing rather than moving the souls of his
hearers and stirring them to their very depths. His
flights of imagination were great and mighty, and the
pictures he conjured up for his listeners, though seldom
charming, were always bold and massive ; his writings,
though they contained little that was particularly beauti
ful, were always characterized by force and weight.
Appearance, speech, action — all bore witness to -.the
authority of the man and to the boldness and originality
of his spirit.

The most striking features of Fichte's character were
the intensity and resoluteness with which he maintained

. his moral convictions, and his burning passion for activity.

J He loved the truth. In 1792, at the very outset of his
career, he solemnly declared that he was devoting himself
to truth, and throughout his life he maintained that
truth was the sole object of his inquiries, and that he
troubled himself very little about what was likely to
please his hearers or be disagreeable to them. As a
thinker, he sought first principles which were indubitably
certain ; as a man, he loathed lies, hated compliments
and flattery, and told everyone the truth to his face.

I Equally he Joved liberty ; his whole life was spejiL in

}• its pursuit and in its defence. His honesty was trans
parent, his disinterestedness patent, and his kindness
proverbial. As early as 1775 he declared that " a theft
is a theft and remains a theft." He treated the students
at Jena as honourable men, and understood how to

xvi ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

appeal to what was best in them. He refused to canvass
~ for the chair at Jena, or to use the good offices of his
- friends to clear away possible obstacles. He would not
take fees from poor students, yet he always found room for
them in his classes. He befriended the distressed in
spite of the uncertainty of his own financial position,
and imposed no condition on them save that of absolute
secrecy. It is not surprising that his influence over the \f
students was so powerful, and that his friendship was
regarded as an inestimable gift. Nor is it surprising
that, strengthened by the consciousness of the loftiest
moral convictions, such a man in early life should have
taken as his motto the words which Horace used in praise
of Caesar Augustus :—

Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinae.1

He was convinced that this world was a land not of
enjoyment, but of labour and toil, and that every joy
in life should be only a refreshment and an incentive to
greater effort. He felt that he must, therefore, not only
think but act, and he confessed to one all-engrossing
passion, the desire to influence and ennoble his fellow-
men, declaring that the more he acted the happier he
seemed to be. His spirit thirsted for opportunity to
do great things in the world, to enable him to purchase
by deeds his place in the human race.

Unfortunately Fichte showed most of the character
istic defects of these good qualities. He inherited from
his mother a violent and impetuous nature which coa-
/ verted his principles into passions and, coupled, with his
j absorbing desire for activity, caused him to berasJi^anOw
I tactless. His passion for the truth made him suspicious

1 Odes, iii, 3, 7-8.

INTRODUCTION xvii

of the sincerity of others, impatient with those who did
not understand his teaching, and intolerant towards
those who did not admit its truth. Owing to the
fierceness with which he maintained his convictions he
always seemed despotic, uncompromising, and obstinate ;
he himself admitted that one of the many qualities he
lacked was that of accommodating himself to those
around him and to people who were opposed to him in
character. The rigour of his principles was tempered
by few humane considerations and led men to regard
him as harsh and difficult. It was undoubtedly these
characteristics which set him at variance so often with j
the authorities of the Church and of the State, and with !
his colleagues at Jena and Berlin, and which allowed
it to be said of him, when he was Rector at the latter
place, that he had no measure in anything, and treated
the students for the smallest fault as though they were
imps of hell. The independence of his spirit caused him
to appear cold and proud ; and the cavalier manner in
which he dealt with illustrious predecessors and contem
poraries, besides inducing Goethe and Schillerjto nickname
him the " Absolute Ego " and the " Great Ego," earned
for him the reputation of being conceited, and sometimes
shocked the feelings of the most friendly-disposed
persons. Thus it was no rare thing to hear him say :
" Here Kant, here Reinhold is wrong, and in this I have
surpassed them " ; or, " No one has understood Kant ;
there is only one way to understand him, that which I
have explained."

He had little finesse, tact, or prudence, and could,
therefore, seldom brook contradiction or interference.
When attacks were made upon him he was very rash
and retaliated in the most provoking way, sometimes even
letting himself go into violent fits of passion. This

xviii ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

inevitably aroused opposition and resentment against
him, and led him to commit many blunders, which even
his best friends could not deny, and which caused Schiller
to allude to him as " the richest source of absurdities."
Thus, when the cry of atheism was raised against him at
Jena, the violent threatening letter which he wrote to
the minister, Voigt, irritated the Weimar government
intensely, alienated the sympathies of many influential
men, and effectively put an end to all possibility of
retaining him at the University.

The fourteen Addresses to the German Nation were
delivered by Fichte during the winter of 1807-1808 in
the great hall of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin before
crowded audiences, and were published in April 1808.
Before attempting to estimate their significance and
importance, it is necessary to consider the circumstances
under which they were delivered. In 1 8 o6_ Napoleon
began his ram p^jglLJff ai n st. Pmssi a wh i ch^ aim ost alone
among the German States, still maintained its independ
ence. War was ^degkregLon October Q, and on the I4th
the Prussians were severely defeated at Jena and Auer-
stadt. So overwhelming were these defeats that further
opposition was impossible ; on October 25 Napoleon
entered Berlin and, one after another, the Prussian
fortresses fell into his hands. Fichte left Berlin hurriedly
on October 18 and fled to East Prussia, remaining at
Konigsberg during the winter. The Russians, who had
come to the aid of the overwhelmed Prussians, fought a
drawn battle with the French at Eylau on February 8,
1807, but were beaten at Friedland on June 14, and
made peace with France at Tilsit on July 8, 1807.
The net results of the treaty for Prussia were that she
was deprived of much of her territory and was forced
to maintain French garrisons in her fortresses, pay

INTRODUCTION xix

large sums of money to France, and reduce her army
to 42,000 men.

Fichte returned to Berlin at the end of August, 1807,
to find Prussia completely humiliated and the French
troops still in occupation of the city. Like many other
heroic souls, however, he could not believe that all was-""
over with Germany ; and just as Stein set himself to
reform the land laws, and Scharnhorst the military
organization, so Fichte took upon himself the task of
arousing the German people to new life" by his Addresses^
W0 the German Nation. .Such a course demanded coiv-
'.jsiderable courage and determination, for the Addresses
jfmaintained the ideals of liberty and justice against the
despotism of Napoleon in the very face of the French
army of occupation. Yet the attitude of the French
authorities to the Addresses was one of complete indifrer-
ence ; probably, as Fichte said, they considered education (
too insignificant and harmless a matter for them to worry
about. _Even among Fichte's fellow-countrymen there
were no doubt many who, like the French authorities,
were completely indifferent ; others perhaps did not
really understand a good deal of what the Addresses
contained, and it was probably the lecturer's presence,
delivery, and force of character, as much as what he said,
which influenced public opinion at the time so profoundly
as to draw from Stein the comment that the Addresses
" had a great effect upon the feelings of the cultivated
class." Whatever the real cause, however, it is certain
that the Addresses were a powerful factor in the creation
of that national spirit which appeared for the first time
ia.lhe War of Liberation of 1813-^15.

Some of the ideas and opinions expressed in the Ad-

'. , dresses are obviously false and cannot be accepted, while

others are gross exaggerations and require considerable

xx ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

modification. Little comment need be made on Fichte's
conception of the German language as the sole living
language, or on his notion of the part that Germany
has played and must still play in the process of the sal
vation of the world. His whole-hearted enthusiasm for
things German inclines him at times to regard everything
genuinely German as necessarily good, and everything
. foreign as necessarily bad. It is obvious what evil results
} would accrue from the logical development of such a
conception. He greatly exaggerates the part played by
Luther and by Germany in the reformation of the
Church ; and it may be that his forecast of some of the
good results that would follow upon the adoption of his
educational reforms is fantastic and overdrawn. The
fact, however, remains that these false and exaggerated
ideas are but small blemishes in the work ; they
are easily explained, if not justified, when we consider
the desperate state of the times, the exalted aim of the
lecturer, the peculiar difficulty of his task, and his enthu
siastic personality. In any case they do not affect to any
considerable extent the tremendous influence of the
Addresses at the time, and their great importance for
the understanding of subsequent periods,

It is impossible within the limits of this introduction
to do anything like justice to the historical and political
importance of the Addresses both for Germany and for
the world. It would be a most interesting and profitable
study to trace, for instance, the development and practical
consequences of Fichte's idea of the closed commercial
State, or to consider the influence of the principle of
nationality, which he so emphatically champions, upon
the course of political development in Germany and in
/ the rest of Europe during the nineteenth century. Tjp
.these and other directions it would be found that the

INTRODUCTION xxi

Addresses are of the utmost importance, and -fully
justify Seeley's reference 1 to them as " the prophetical.,
or canonical book which announ.cei jind.. explains a great _
transition in modern Europe and the prophecies of which^
began to be fulfilled immediately after its publication."
They_ certainly mark a definite stage in the political
evolution of modern Germany, for in them Fichte appears
as one of the founders of a united Germany, and from
them date the regeneration of Prussia and the awakening
of a national spirit in Germany./' They mark, too, an_
epoch in the history of the world, for they show Fichte
as an apostle of the gospel of liberty, and proclaim that
principle of nationality which had far-reaching effects on
the political development of Europe in the nineteenth
century .j

Nor is it possible here to do justice to their tremendous
effect on the development of education in Germany.
Stein was certainly influenced, especially by those Ad
dresses which deal mainly with education ; he became an
ardent advocate of the reforms urged by Fichte, as the
educational schemes of his ministry testify. That part
of his political testament which concerns itself with
education seems also to have been inspired by Fichte's
influence.2 More important still, however, is the fact
that the Addresses influenced Wilhelm von Humboldt,
whose ideas and plans for German education were carried
into effect in 1809 and 1810, and who selected Fichte
to be Professor of Philosophy in the new University of
Berlin in 1 8 10. Humboldt's work laid the real foundations
of modern German education, and it would be interesting
to show how Fichte's ideas helped to mould that educa
tion in its origins and subsequent development.

It is not just because of their great significance in
1 Life of Stein, ii, 41. 2 Ibid., p. 28 ; cf. p. 292.

xxii ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

the political and educational evolution of Germany and
of the rest of Europe, however, that the Addresses are
important and demand attention. The ideas they con
tain are of value to-day as they were in 1808, and are
i applicable not to one country alone but tp every nation.1
1 The Addresses are essentially modern both in outlook and
i in content. This is particularly true in regard to the
educational principles they embody, many of which are
only now being gradually accepted and put into practice.
On these grounds too, therefore, the views which Fichte
puts forward in his Addresses deserve close scrutiny and
careful consideration.

1 It is interesting in this connection to note the conclusion of Ebert's
speech at the opening of the National Assembly at Weimar, reported in
the Times, February 8, 1919 : " In this way we will set to work, our great
aim before us : to maintain the right of the German nation, to lay the
foundation in Germany for a strong democracy, and to bring it to achieve
ment with the true social spirit and in the socialistic way. Thus shall we
realize that which Fichte has given to the German nation as its task. We
want to establish a State of justice and truthfulness, founded on the
equality of all humanity."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following books may be recommended to the general
reader who desires to know more of Fichte's life and ideas.

i a

THE POPULAR WORKS OF J. G. FICHTE. Translated, vvitl

memoir, by William Smith. 2 vols. Chapman, London,
1848-9. 2nd edition, Triibner, 1873.

THE VOCATION OF MAN. Translated by William Smith. 2nd
edition. Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, 1910.

FICHTE. By R. Adamson. Blackwood's Philosophical Classics.
London, 1881.

FICHTE. Article, by R. Adamson, in Ency. Brit., nth edition.
LIFE AND TIMES OF STEIN. By J. R. Seeley. 3 vols. Cam
bridge University Press, 1878.

FICHTE ET SON TEMPS. By X. Leon. vol. i. Armand Colin,
Paris, 1922.

xxiii

ADDRESSES TO THE
GERMAN NATION

FIRST ADDRESS

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY

I. THE addresses which I now commence I have an
nounced as a continuation of the lectures which I gave
three winters ago in this place, and which were published
under the title : " Characteristics of the Present Age."
In those lectures I showed that our own age was set in
the third^reat^epoch of time,1 an epoch which had as the
motive of all its vital activities and impulses mere material t
self-seeking ; that this age could comprehend and under-

1 [In accordance with his fundamental conception that the aim of
human life on earth is that mankind may consciously and voluntarily
order all its relations according to reason, Fichte distinguishes five epochs
in the life of the human race : (i) that in which those relations are ordered
by reason acting in the human race as blind_ instinct, i.e., without man
having any insight into the grounds of its activity ; (2) that in which those
relations are ordered by reason acting as an "external ruling authority
upon the human race through its more powerful individual members,
in whom reason appears as the desire to raise the whole race to their level
by compelling blind faith and unconditional obedience ; (3) that in which
mankind frees itself, directly from the rule of reason as an external ruling
authority, indirectly from the dominion of reason as instinct, and generally
from reason in any form, and gives itself over to absolute indifference
towards all truth and to unrestrained licentiousness ; (4) that in which
mankind becomes conscious of reason and understands its laws with clear
scientific knowledge ; (5) that in which mankind, with clear conscious
ness and by its own free act, orders all its relations in accordance with the
laws of reason. See Lectures I. and II. on the Characteristics of the
Present Age in Smith's translation of Fichte's Popular Works.]

I

2 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

stand itself completely only by recognising that as the
sole possible motive ; and, finally, that by this clear per
ception of its own nature it was becoming deeply rooted
and Immovably fixed in this its natural state of existence.

Time is taking giant strides with us more than with
any other age since the history of the world began. At
some point within the thre£years that have gpne_by, since
my interpretation of the present age that epoch has
come tojm end. At some point self-seeking has destroyed
itself, because by its own complete development^ has
lost its self and the independence of that self ; and since
it would not voluntarily set itself any other aim but self,
an external powe£has forced upon it another and a foreign
purpose. He who has once undertaken to interpret his
own age must make his interpretation keep pace with the
progress of that age, if progress there be. It is, there
fore, my duty to acknowledge as past what has ceased to
be the present, before the same audience to whom I
characterized it as the present.

2. Whatever has lost its independence has at the same'
time lost its power to influence the course of events and
to determine these events by its own will. If it remain
in this statejis age, and itself with the age, are conditioned
in their development by that alien power which governs
its fate. From now onwards it has no longer any time of
its own, but counts its years by the events and epochs of
alien nations and kingdoms. From this state, in which
all its past world is removed from its independent in
fluence and in its present world only the merit of obed
ience remains to it, it could raise itself only_ori condition
that a ne^sL world should arise for it^. the creation of which
would begin, and its development fill, a new epoch of
its own in history. But, since it has once fallen under
alien power, this new world must be so constituted that

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 3

it remains unperceived by that power, that it does not
in any way arouse its jealousy ; nay more, that the alien
power itself is induced by its own interest to put no
obstacle in the way of the formation of such a world.
Now if, for a race which has lost its former self, its former
age and world, such a world should be created as the means
of producing a new self ancfa~new age, a thorough inter
pretation of such a possible age would have to give an
account of the world thus created.

Now for my part I maintain that there is such a world,
and it is the aim of these addresses 'to show you its exist
ence and its true owner, to bring before your eyes a living
picture of it, and_to indicate the means of creating it.
In this sense, therefore, these addresses will be a con
tinuation of the lectures previously given on the then
• existing age, because they will reveal the new era which j
can and must directly follow the_ destruction of the. \
kingdom of self-seeking by an alien power. __

3. But, before I begin this task, I must ask you to assume "~
the following points so that they never escape your
memory, and to agree with me upon them wherever and
in so far as this is necessary.

j (a) I speak for Germans simply, of Germans simply,
I not recognizing, but settim^aside completely and rejecting,*\
(all the dissociating distinctions which for centuries un=-J
I happy events have caused in this single nation^- You,
f gentlemen, are indeed to my outward eye the first and
immediate representatives who bring before my mind
the beloved national characteristics, and are the visible /
spark at which the flame of my address is kindled. But
my spirit gathers round it the educated part of the whole
German nation, from all the lands in which they are ^
scattered. It thinks ol an~3 considers our common p

josition^aric^ relations ; it longs that part ol the living

\

4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

force, with which these addresses may chance to grip
you, may also remain in and breathe from the dumb
printed page which alone will come to the eyes of the
absent, and may in all places kindle German hearts to
deckion_and ' action. Only of (jermans~aiT3r^simply for
Germans, I said. In due course we shall show that any
other mark of unity or any other national bond either
never had truth and meaning or, if it had, that owing to
our present position these bonds of union have been
destroyed and torn from us and can never recur ; jt_js
only by means of the common characteristic of being
German that we can avert the downfall of our natjon
which is threatened by its fusion with foreign peoples,
and win back again an individuality that is self-supporting
and quite incapable of any dependence upon others.
With our perception of the truth of this statement its
apparent conflict (feared now, perhaps, by many) with
other duties and with matters that are considered sacred
will completely vanish.

Therefore, as I speak jmly of ^Germans_in_ general, I
shall proclaim that many things concern us which do not
apply in the first instance to those assembled here, just
as I shall pronounce as the concern of all Germans other
things which apply in the first place only to us. In the
spirit, of which these addresses are the expression, I
I perceive that organic unity in which no member regards
the fate of another as the fate of a stranger. JTbehold
that unity (which shall and must arise if we are not to

and

I existing.

"\/ (b) I assume as hearers not such Germans as are in
their whole nature completely given over to a feeling of
ss they have suffered, who take comfort in

this pain, luxuriate in their disconsolate grief, and think

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 5

thereby to compromise with the call that summons them
to action ; but I assume such Germans as have already
risen, or at least are capable of rising, above this justifiable
pain to clear thought and meditation.— I know that
pain ; I have felt it as much as anyone ; I respect it.
Apathy, which is satisfied if it find meat and drink and be
not subjected to bodily pain, and for which honour, free
dom, and independence are empty names, is incapable of
it. Pain, however, exists merely to spur us on to reflec- -
tion^ decision., a"ncT act ion. Jf it fails in this ultimate
purpose, it robs us of reflection and of all our remaining
powers, and so completes our misery ; while, moreover,
as witness to our sloth and cowardice, it affords the
visible proof that we deserve our misery. But I do not \
in the least intend to lift you above this pain by holding \
out hopes of any help which will come to you from out
side, and by indicating all kinds of possible events and /
changes which time may perchance bring about. For
even if this attitude of mind, which prefers to roam in
the shifting world of possibilities rather than to stick
to what must be done, and would rather owe its salva
tion to blind chance than to itself, did not already in
itself afford evidence, as it really does, of the most criminal
levity and of the deepest self-contempt, yet all hopes
and indications of this kind have absolutely no applica
tion to our position. Strict proof can, and in due course
will, be given that no man and no god and not one of all _
the events that are within the bounds of possibility can
help us, but that we alone must help ourselves if help is^""
to come to us. Rather shall I try to lift you above that
pain by clear perception of our position, of our yet remain
ing strength, and of the means of our salvation. _For
that purpose I shall, it is true, demand of you a certain "
amount of reflection, some spontaneous activity, and some

6 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

sacrifice, and reckon therefore on hearers of whom so much
may be expected. The demands I make, however, are on
the whole easy, and presuppose no greater amount of
strength than one may, I think, expect of our age ; as
for danger, there is absolutely none.

(c) Since I intend to give the Germans, as such, a clear
view of their present position, I shall assume ^asjhearers
such as are dispo^e_cLto__se^_thin^s_j3f this sort with their
ownjpyes^and by no means such as find it easier in their
consideration of these matters to have foisted upon them
a strange and foreign eyeglass, which is either deliber
ately intended to deceive, or never properly suits a Ger
man eye, becausTTrtas a different angle of vision and is
not_fine_ enough. Moreover, I presuppose that such
hearers, when looking at these things with their own
eyes, will have the courage to look honestly at what does
exist and to admit candidly to themselves what they see,
and that they either have conquered already, or at least
are capable of conquering, 'tEe~~tehdency (frequently
manifested) to deceive oneself concerning one's own
affairs, and to present to the jnind a less displeasing
picture o£_them than is consistent with the truth. This
tendency is a cowardly flight from one's own thoughts ;
and it is a childish attitude of mind which seems to
believe that, if only it does not see its misery, or at least
does not admit that it sees it, this misery will thereby
be removed in reality, even as it is removed in thought.

n the other hand, it is manly courage to look evil full in
the face, to compel it to make a stand, to scrutinize it
calmly, coolly, and freely, and to resolve it into its com
ponent parts. Moreover, by this clear perception alone
is it possible to master evil and to proceed with sure step
in the fight against it. For the man who sees the whole
in each part always knows where he stands, and is sure

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 7

of his ground by reason of the insight he has once gained ;
whereas another man, lacking sure clue or definite cer
tainty, gropes blindly in a dream.

Why, then, should we be afraid of this clear perception ?
Evil does not become less through ignorance, nor increase
through knowledge ; indeed it is only by the latter that
it can be cured. But the question of blame shall not be
raised here. Let sloth and self-seeking be censured with
bitter reprimand, with biting sarcasm and cutting scorn,
and let them be provoked, if to nothing better, at least
to bitter hatred of him who gives the reminder — such
hatred is at any rate a powerful impulse ; let this be done,
so long as the inevitable result, the evil, is not fully accom
plished, and so long as salvation or mitigation may still
be expected from any improvement. But, when this
evil is so complete that we are deprived of even the pos
sibility of sinning again in the same way, it is useless and
looks like malicious joy to continue to rail against a sin
that can no longer be committed. The consideration <
immediately drops out of the sphere of ethics into that
of history, for which freedom is ended, and which regards
an event as the inevitable consequence of what has gone
before. For our addresses there remains no other view
of the present than this last, and we shall therefore never
adopt any other. ^v

This attitude of mind, therefore, that we consider
ourselves simply Germans, that we be not held captive
even by pain itself, that we wish to see the truth and have
the courage to look it in the face, I presuppose and reckon
upon in every word that I shall say. If, therefore, any-'
one should bring another attitude of mind to this meeting,
he would have to attribute solely to himself the unpleasant
feelings which might be caused him here. Let this then
be said once for all, and finished with. I proceed now

8 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

to my other task, namely, to put before you in a
general survey the contents of all the addresses that are
to follow.

4. At some point, I said at the beginning of my address,
self-seeking has destroyed itself by its own complete
development, because thereby if hasjtost its self and the
power of fixing its aims independently. This destruction
of self-seeking, now accomplished, constitutes both that
progress of the age which I have mentioned and the com
pletely new ^ event which, in my opinion, has made a
continuation of my previous description of that age both
possible and necessary. This destruction would, therefore,
be our real present, to which our new life in a new world
(the existence of which I likewise maintained) would have
to be directly linked. It would, therefore, be also the
proper starting-point for my addresses, and I should have
to show above all how and why such a destruction of
self-seeking must result inevitably from its highest develop-
1 ment.

* Self-seeking is most highly developed when, after it has

• first affected, with insignificant exceptions, the whole body
of subjects, it thereupon masters the rulers and becomes
their sole motive in life. In such a government there ,
arises first of all, outwardly, the neglect of all the ties by j
which its own safety is bound up with the safety of other *
States, the abandoning of the whole, of which it is a part,
solely in order that it may not be roused from its slothful

Asleep, and the sad illusion of self-seeking that it has peace,
)•• if only its own frontiers are not attacked ; then, inwardly,
(that feeble handling of the reins of State which calls
itself in alien words humanity, liberality, and popularity,
but which in German is more j^uiy_£aJlecLslackness and
unworthy conduct.

When it masters the rulers too, I said. A people can

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 9

be completely corrupted, i.e., self-seeking — for self-
seeking is the root of all other_corruptipn-— and yet at
the same time not only endure, but even outwardly
accomplish splendid deeds, provided only that its govern
ment be not also corrupt. Indeed, the latter may even
outwardly act treacherously, disloyally, and dishonourably,
if only it have inwardly the courage to hold on to the
reins of government with a strong hand and to win for
itself the greater fear. But where all the circumstances
I have mentioned are combined, the commonwealth' "-
collapses at the first serious attack which is made upon
it, and just as it first disloyally severed itself from the 7*Li
body of which it was a member, so now its own members, f)L**
who are restrained by no fear of it and are spurred on by the
greater fear of a foreign power, cut themselves off from
it with the same disloyalty and go each his own way.
At this, the greater fear once more seizes those who now
remain isolated ; and where they gave sparingly and most
unwillingly to the defender of their country, to the enemy
they give abundantly and with a forced look of cheer
fulness. Later on, the rulers, abandoned and betrayed
on all sides, are compelled to purchase their further exis
tence by submission and obedience to foreign schemes ;
and so those, who in battle for their country threw away
their arms, now learn to wield those same arms bravely
under foreign colours against their mother - country.
Thus it comes about that self-seeking is destroyed by its\
own complete development ; and upon those who would 1
not voluntarily set themselves any other aim but self, j
another aim is imposed by alien power. /

5. No nation which has sunk into this state of depend
ence can raise itself out of it by the means which have
usually been adopted hitherto. Since resistance was use
less to it when it was still in possession of all its powers,

io ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

what can such resistance avail now that it has been
deprived of the greater part of them ? What might
previously have availed, namely, if its government had
held the reins strongly and firmly, is now no longer appli
cable, because these reins now only appear to rest in
its hand, for this very hand is steered and guided by an
alien hand. Such a nation can no longer depend upon
^ffi^.-flfl^ ^ r^"™^y ag little on the rnnqnernr., who would
be just as thoughtless, just as cowardly and weak as that
nation itself once was, if he did not hold fast to the advan
tages he had won, and exploit them in every way. Or if in
course of time he were ever to become so thoughtless and
cowardly, he also would perish, like ourselves ; but not
to our advantage, for he would be the prey of another
conqueror, and we, as a matter of course, the insignificant
addition to that prey. If^Jiowever, a nation so fallen
<were to be able to save herself, it would have to be by
j means of something completely new and never previously
I employed, namely, by the creation of a totally new order
/ of things. Let us see, therefore, what in the previously
u existing order of things was the reason why such an
order had inevitably to come to an end at some time or
other, so that in the opposite of this reason for its down
fall we may find the new element which must be intro
duced into the age, in order that by its means the fallen
nation may rise to a new life.

6. On investigating this reason we find that in every
previous system of government the interest of the indi
vidual in the community was linked to his interest in
himselfjby^ ties, which at some point were so completely
severed that his interest in the community absolutely
ceas_ed. Thesejties were those_of.fear and hope concern
ing the interests of the individual in relation to the fate
of the community — both in the present and in some

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY n

future life. The enlightenment of the understanding,
with its purely material calculations, was the force which
destroyed the connection established by religion between
some future life and the present, and which at the same
time conceived that such substitutes and supplements
of the moral sense as love of fame and national honour
were but illusory phantoms. It was the weakness ofs
governments which removed the individual's fear for his < & •*•*- •
own interests even in this life (in so far as they depended ,
upon his behaviour towards the community) by frequently j CJ^
allowing neglect of duty to go unpunished. Similarly, *>
it rendered the motive of hope ineffective by satisfying
it frequently on quite different grounds and principles,
without heed to services rendered to the community.
Such were the ties which at some point were complete/y
severed ; and it was this severance that caused the breaking-
up of the commonwealth.

Henceforth it matters not how industriously the con- « ^j-
queror may do that which he alone can do, namely, ,j^
link up again and strengthen the latter part of the binding
tie — fear and hope for this present life. He alone will
profit thereby, and not we at all ; for so surely as he per
ceives his advantage will he link to this renewed bond first
and foremost only his own interests. Ours he will further
only in so far as their preservation can serve as a means
to his own ends. For a nation so ruined, fear and hope
are henceforth completely destroyed, because control
over them has now slipped from her hands, and because
she herself indeed has to fear and hope, but no one hence
forth either fears her or hopes for aught from her. There
remains nothing for her but to find an entirely different
and new binding tie that is superior to fear and hope, in_
order to link up the welfare of her whole being: with the

^. .. -t- — • o

self-interest of each of her members.

12 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

7. Above the material motive of fear or hope, and
bordering immediately upon it, there is the spiritual
motive of moral approval or disapproval, and the higher
feeling of pleasure or displeasure at the condition of our
selves and of others. The physical eye, when accustomed
' to cleanliness and order, is troubled and distressed, as
though actually hurt, by a spot which indeed causes the
body no actual injury, or by the sight of objects lying in
chaotic confusion ; while the eye accustomed 'to dirt and
disorder is quite comfortable under such circumstances.
So, too, the inner mental eye of man can be so accustomed
and trained that the very sight of a muddled and dis
orderly, unworthy and dishonourable existence of its own
or of a kindred race causes it intense pain, apart from
anything there may be to fear or to hope from this for
its own material welfare. This pain, apart again from
material fear or hope, permits the possessor of such an
eye no rest until he has removed, in so far as he can, this
condition which displeases him, and has set in its place
that which alone can please him. /For the possessor of
such an eye, because of this stimulating feeling of approval
or disapproval, the welfare of his whole environment is
bound up inextricably with the welfare of his own wider
/ self, which is conscious of itself only assart of the whole
I and can ^endure. Itself only when the whole" is ^pleasing.
To educate itself to possess"sucnan eye will, therefore,,
be assure meafl.5, and'^Hdeed the_only_jneans left to a
I nation which has lost her independence and with it all
influence over public fear and hope, of rising again into
life fromjdi^j^itiuclioji^lirhRS suffered, and of entrusting
her national welfare, which since her downfall neither
God nor man has heeded, with confidence to this new
and higher feeling that has arisen. _It follows, then, .tijat
(the means of salvation which I promised to indicate con^

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 13

of an entirely new self ? which niayj^
have existed before perhaps in individuals as an exception7
Fut never as a /tnriversalTa^^ and in the _

education of the nation, whose former life has died out
and become jthe^supplement of an alien life, to a com
pletely new life, which shall either remain her exclusive '' __
possession or, if it must go forth from her to others, -
shall at least continue whole and undiminished in spite __
,of infinite "division. _Jn a word, it is a total change of ._

' the existing system of education that I propose as the
sole means" oi preserving the existence^of the German .

.nation, y

8. That children must be given a good education has
been said often enough, and has been repeated too often
even in our age ; and it would be a paltry thing if we, too,
for our part wished to do nothing but say it once again.
Rather will it be our duty, in so far as we think we can

[ accomplish something new, to investigate carefully and

\ definitely what education hitherto has really lacked, and
to suggest what completely new element a reformed

i system must add to the training that has hitherto existed.
After such an investigation we must admit that the
existing education does not fail to bring before the eyes
of the pupils some sort of picture of a religious, moral, and
law-abiding disposition and of order in all things and good
habits, and also that here and there it has faithfully ex
horted them to copy such pictures in their lives. With
very rare exceptions, however — and these were, moreover,
not the outcome of this education (because otherwise they
must have appeared, and that too as the rule, amongst
all who received such instruction), but were occasioned
by other causes — with these very rare exceptions, I say,
the pupils of this education have in general followed,
not those moral ideas and exhortations, but the imputes

14 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

of self-seeking which developed in them spontaneously
and without any assistance from education. This proves
beyond dispute that the system may, indeed, have been
able to fill the memory with some words and phrases
and the cold and indifferent imagination with some faint
and feeble pictures ; but that it has never succeeded in
making its picture of a moral world-order so vivid that the
pupil was filled with passionate love and yearning for that
order, and with such glowing emotion as to incite him
j to realize it in his life — emotion before which self-seeking
[falls to the ground like withered leaves. It also proves
this education to have been far from reaching right down
to the roots of real impulse and action in life, and from
! training them; for these roots, neglected by this blind
j and impotent system, have everywhere developed wild,
I as best they could, yielding good fruit in a few who
I were inspired by God, but evil fruit in the majority.
It is for the present, then, quite sufficient to describe this
education by these its results, and for our purpose we
can spare ourselves the wearisome task of analysing the
inner sap and fibre of a tree whose fruit is now fully ripe
and lies fallen before the eyes of all, proclaiming most
clearly and distinctly the inner nature of its creator.
Strictly speaking, according to this view, the present
system has been by no means the art of educating men.
/"This, indeed, it has not boasted of doing, but has very
/ often frankly acknowledged its impotence by demanding
I to be given natural talent or genius as the condition of
I its success. Rather does such an art remain to be dis
covered, and this discovery should be the real task of
the new education. What was lacking in the old system — ,
namely, an influence penetrating to the roots of vital I
impulse and action — the new education must supply. I
f Accordingly, as the old system was able at best to train

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 15

some part of man, so the new must train 'man himself,
and must make the training given, not, as hitherto, the
pupil's possession, but an integral part of himself. &*

9. Moreover, education, restricted in this way, has
been brought to bear hitherto only on the very small
minority of classes which are for this reason called educated,
whereas the great majority on whom in very truth the
commonwealth rests, the people, have been almost
entirely neglected by this system and abandoned to blind

chance. By means of the new education we want to

_,, * — ' .- _r __ ,

mould the Germans into a corporate body, which shall _
be stimulated and animated in all its individual members
by the same interest. If by this means we wanted, indeed,
to mark off an educated class, which might perhaps be
animated by the newly developed motive of moral appro
val, from an uneducated one, then the latter would desert
us and be lost to us ; because the motives of hope and fear,
by which alone influence might be exercised over it, would
work no longer with us but against us. _Sp_ there is nothing
left for us but just to apply the new system to every
German without exception, so that it is not the education,
of a single class, but the education of the nation, simply
as such and without excepting any of its individual mem-
bers._ In this, that is to say in the training of man, to
take real pleasure in what is right, all distinction of classes,
which may in the future find a place in other branches
of development, will be completely removed and vanish.
In__this way there will grow up among us, . not popular
education, but real German national education.

10. I shall prove to you that a system of education
such as we desire has actually been discovered and is
already being practised, so that we have nothing to do
but to accept what is offered us. As I promised you con
cerning the means of salvation that I should propose,

16 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

this demands undoubtedly no greater amount of energy
than can reasonably be expected of our generation. To
that promise I added another, namely, that so far as
danger is concerned there is none at all in our proposal,
because the self-interest of the power that rules over us
demands that the carrying-out of such a proposal should
be assisted rather than hindered. I consider it appro
priate to speak my mind clearly on this point at, once in
this first address.

It is true that in ancient as in modern times the arts
of corrupting and of morally degrading the conquered
have very frequently been used with success as a means
of ruling. By lying fictions, and by skilful confusion of
ideas and of language, princes have been libelled to the
people, and peoples to princes, in order that the two
parties, because of their dissension, might the more surely
be controlled. All the impulses of vanity and of self-
interest have been cunningly aroused and fostered, so
as to make the conquered contemptible, and thus to crush
them with something like a good conscience. But it
would be a fatal error to propose this method with us
Germans. Apart from the tie of fear and hope, the
coherence of that part of the outside world with which we
have now come into contact is founded on the motives of
honour and of national glory. The clear vision of the
German, however, has long since come to the unshakable
i conviction that these are empty illusions, and that no
injury or mutilation of the individual is healed by the
glory of the whole nation, and we shall indeed, if a wider
view of life be not brought before us, probably become
dangerous preachers of this very natural and attractive
doctrine. Without, therefore, taking to ourselves any
new corruption, we are already in our natural condition
a harmful prey ; only by carrying out the proposal

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 17

that has been made can we become a wholesome one.
Then the outside world, as certainly as it knows its own
interests, will be guided by them, and prefer to have us
in the latter state rather than in the former.

11. Now in making this proposal my address is directed
especially towards the educated classes in Germany, for .
I hope that it will be intelligible to them first. My pro
posal is first and foremost that they become the authors
of this new creation, thereby, on the one hand, reconciling
the world to their former influence, and, on the other,
deserving its continuance in the future. We shall see
in the course of these addresses that up to the present
all human progress in the German nation has sprung from
the people, and that to it, in the first instance, great national
affairs have always been brought, and by it have been cared
for and furthered. Now, for the first time, therefore, it
happens that the fundamental reconstruction of the nation

is offered as a task to the educated classes, and if they
were really to accept this offer, that, too, would happen '
for the first time. We shall find that these classes cannot ,
calculate how long it will still remain in their power to
place themselves at the head of this movement, since it is
now almost prepared and ripe for proposal to the people,
and is being practised on individuals from among the
people ; and the people will soon be able to help themselves
without any assistance from us. The result of this for us^i
will simply be that the present educated classes and their 11
descendants will become the people ; while from among W
the present people another more highly educated class /
will arise.

12. Finally, it is the general aim of these addresses to
bring courage and hope to the suffering, to proclaim joy
in the midst of deep sorrow, to lead us gently and softly
through the hour of deep affliction. This age is to me as a

1 8 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

shade that stands weeping over its own corpse, from which
it has been driven forth by a host of diseases, unable to
tear its gaze from the form so beloved of old, and trying in
despair every means to enter again the home of pestilence.
Already, it is true, the quickening breezes of that other
world, which the departed soul has entered, have taken it
unto themselves and are surrounding it with the warm
breath of love ; the whispering voices of its sisters greet
it with joy and bid it welcome ; and already in its depths
it stirs and grows in all directions towards the more
glorious form into which it shall develop. But as yet the
soul has no feeling for these breezes, no ear for these
voices — or if it had them, they have disappeared in sorrow
for the loss of mortal form ; for with its form the soul
thinks it has lost itself too. What is to be done with it ?
The dawn of the new world is already past its breaking ;
already it gilds the mountain tops, and shadows forth
the coming day. I wish, so far as in me lies, to catch the
rays of this dawn and weave them into a mirror, in which
our grief-stricken age may see itself ; so that it may
believe in its own existence, may perceive its real self, and,
as in prophetic vision, may see pass by its own develop
ment, its coming forms. In the contemplation of this,
the picture of its former life will doubtless sink and vanish ;
and the dead body may be borne to its resting-place
without undue lamenting.

Cilllctll

3f the \

ristics, I

i n CY r»T *

SECOND ADDRESS

THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE NEW EDUCATION

13. THESE addresses should lead you first of all, and with
you the whole nation, to a clear perception of the remedy
which I have proposed for the preservation of the German
nation. Such a remedy follows from the nature of
age as well as of the German national characteristics
and must in turn influence the age and the moulding of
those national characteristics. This remedy, therefore,
does not become perfectly clear and intelligible until it
is compared with the latter, and these with it, and both
are represented in complete connection with each other.
For these tasks time is needed ; perfect clearness, there
fore, is to be expected only at the end of our addresses.
But, since we must begin at some point, it will be most
convenient first of all to consider the inner nature of
that remedy by itself, apart from its relations in time and
space. Our address to-day, therefore, will be devoted to
this task.

The remedy indicated was an absolutely new system
of German national education, such as has never existed
in any other nation. In the last address this new educa
tion, as distinguished from the old, was described thus :
the existing education has at most only exhorted to good
order and morality, but these exhortations have been
unfruitful in real life, which has been moulded on prin-

19

20 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

ciples that are quite different and completely beyond
the influence of that education ; in contrast to this, the
new education must be able surely and infallibly to~
mould and determine according to rules the real vital
impulses and actions of its pupils.

14. Now perchance someone might -say, as indeed
those who administer the present system of education
almost without exception actually do say : " What more
should one expect of any education than that it should
point out what is right to the pupil and exhort him
earnestly to it ; whether he wishes to follow such exhorta
tions is his own affair and, if he does not, his own fault ;
he has free will, which no education can take from him."
Then, in order to define more clearly the new education
which I propose, I should reply that that very recognition
pf, and reliance upon, free will in the pupil is the first
listake of the old system and the clear confession of its
itnpotence and futility. For, by confessing that after
all its most powerful efforts the will still remains free,
that is, hesitating undecided between good and evil, it
confesses that it neither is able, nor wishes, nor longs to
fashion the will and (since the latter is the very root of
man) man himself, and that it considers this altogether
impossible. On the other hand, the new education must
; f consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys
/ freedom of will in the soil which it undertakes to cultivate,
\\ and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the
I \ decisions of the will, the opposite being impossible.
\ Such a will can henceforth be relied on with confidence
and certainty.

All education aims at producing a stable, settled, and
steadfast character, which no longer is developing, but
is, and cannot be other than it is. If it did not aim at
such a character it would be, not education, but some

GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 21

aimless game ; if it did not produce such a character it
would still be incomplete. He who must still exhort
himself, and be exhorted, to will the good, has as yet no
firm and ever-ready will, but wills a will anew every
time he needs it. But he who has such a stable will,
wills what he wills for ever, and cannot under any cir-
cumstances will otherwise than he always wills. For him
freedom of the will is destroyed and swallowed up in
necessity. The past age had neither a true conception
of education for manhood nor the power to realize that
conception. It showed this by wanting to improve man
kind by warning sermons, and by being angry and scolding
when these sermons were of no avail. Yet how could
they avail aught ? Before the warning, and independent
of it, the will of man has already its definite bent. If
this agrees with your exhortation, the latter comes too
late ; without it he would have done what you exhort
him to. If this bent and your exhortation are in opposi
tion, you may at most bewilder him for a few moments ;
when the time comes, he forgets himself and your exhorta
tion, and follows his natural inclination. If you want
to influence him at all, you must do more than merely
talk to him ; you must fashion him, and fashion him in
such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you
wish him to will. It is idle to say : Fly — for he has no
wings, and for all your exhortations will never rise two
steps above the ground. But jievelop? if you can., fcis.

spiritual wings ; let him exercise them and make them
strong, and without any exhortation from you he will
want, and will be able, to do nothing but fly.

15. The^new education must produce^this stable and
unh^sitat ing -wil

Itjnusljtself inevitably crea±£_.the necessity t which it
aims. Those who in the past became good did so thanks

22 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

to their natural disposition, which outweighed the in
fluence of their bad environment, and not because of
their education in any way, for otherwise all the pupils
would have become good. Those who went to the bad
did so just as little because of education, for otherwise
all the pupils would have been corrupted ; they went
to the bad of themselves, thanks to their natural disposi
tion. In this respect education was simply futile, and
not pernicious at all ; the real formative agency was
spiritual nature. Henceforth education for manhood
must be taken from the influence of this mysterious and
incalculable force and put under the direction of a deliber
ate art, which will surely and infallibly accomplish its
purpose with everyone entrusted to it ; or which, if
somehow it does not accomplish it, will at least know that
it has not done so, and that therefore the training is still
incomplete. The education proposed by me, therefore,
I is to be a reliable and deliberate art for fashioning in
iman a stable and infallible good will. That is its 'first
\characteristic.

1 6. Moreover, man can will only what he loves ; his

I love is the sole and at the same time the infallible motive

\ of his will and of all his vital impulses and actions.

^Hitherto, in its education of the social man the art of

the State assumed, as a sure and infallible principle, that

everyone loves and wills h 1 1 nwn rn algrial welfare . To

this natural love it ardfkjall^Jinked, by means of the

motives of fear and hope, that good will which it desired,

namely, interest in the-eom^Kii^weaL Anyone who has

become outwardly a harmless or even useful citizen as a

result of such a system of education remains, nevertheless,

inwardly a bad man ; for badness consists essentially in

loving solely one's own material welfare and in being

influenced only by the motives of fear or hope for that

GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 23

welfare, whether in the present or in some future life.
Apart from this fact, we have already seen that this
method is no longer applicable to us, because the motives
of fear and hope serve no longer with us but against us,
and material love of self cannot be turned to our advantage
in any .way. We are, therefore, compelled by necessity
to wish to mould men who are inwardly and fundamen
tally good, since it is through such men alone that the
German nation can still continue to exist, whereas through
bad men it will inevitably be absorbed in the outside
world. Therefore, in place of that love of self, with
which nothing for our good can be connected any longer,
we must set up and establish in the hearts of all those
whom we wish to reckon among our nation that other
kind of love, which is concerned directly with the good,
tor itsowjq.sake.

We have already seen that love of the good, simply
as such and not for the sake of any advantage to our
selves, takes the form of pleasure in it ; a pleasure so
intense that a man is thereby stimulated to realize the
good in his life. It is this intense pleasure, therefore,?)
which the new education should produce as its pupil's||
stable and constant character. Then this pleasure
itself would inevitably be the foundation of the pupil's
constant good will.

17. A pleasure that stimulates us to bring about a
certain state of affairs which does not yet actually exist pre
supposes an iniage of that state which, previous to its actual
existence, hovers before the mind and attracts that pleasure
which stimulates to realization. This pleasure, therefore,
presupposes in the individual who is to be affected by
it the power to create spontaneously such images, which
are independent of reality and not copies of it, but rather
its prototypes. I must now speak of this power, and I

24 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

beg you during the consideration of it not to forget
that an image created by this power can please simply
as an image, and as one in which we feel our creative
energy, without being for that reason taken as a proto
type of reality and without pleasing to such a degree that
it stimulates to realization. The latter is quite a different
and our own special goal, of which we shall not fail to
speak later ; but the former is simply the preliminary
condition for the attainment of the true ultimate aim of
education.

1 8. That power to create spontaneously images, which
are not simply copies of reality, but can become its pro
totypes, should be the starting-point for the moulding
of the race by means of the new education. To create
images spontaneously, I said, and in such a way that the
pupil will produce them by his own power ; but not in
deed that he will merely be capable of receiving passively
the image presented to him by education, of understanding
it sufficiently, and of reproducing it just as it is presented
to him, as if it were a question simply of the existence
of such an image. The reason for demanding self-
activity in regard to that image is this ; only on that
condition can the image created engage the active
pleasure of the pupil. For it is one thing merely to allow
oneself to be pleased at something and to have nothing
against it ; such passive pleasure can arise at best only
from passive submission. But it is quite another thing
to be so affected by pleasure at something that this
pleasure becomes productive and stirs up all our energy
to the act of creation. We speak not of the former,
which happened no doubt even in the old education, but
of the latter. Now, this pleasure will be kindled only
by the pupil's self-activity being stimulated at the same
time and becoming manifest to him in the given object,

GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 25

so that this object pleases not only in itself, but also as
an object of the manifestation of mental power. This
pleases directly, inevitably, and invariably.

19. This creative mental activity which is to be \
developed in the pupil is undoubtedly an activity accord- j
ing to rules, which become known to the active pupil 1
until he sees from his own direct experience that they /
alone are possible — that is, this activity produces know- I /
ledge, and that, too, of general and infallible laws. More- '*
over, in the free development that begins at this point
it is impossible to undertake anything contrary to the
law, and no act results until the law is obeyed. Even if,
therefore, this free development should begin at first
with blind efforts, it must still end in more extensive
knowledge of the law. This training, therefore, in its
final result, is the training of the pupil's faculty of know
ledge, and, of course, not historical training in the actual
condition of things, but the higher and philosophical
training in the laws which make that actual condition of
things inevitable. The pupil learns.

I add : the pupil learns willingly and with pleasure,
and there is nothing he would rather do than learn, so
long as the effort lasts ; for while he is learning his activity
is spontaneous, and in this he has directly the greatest
possible pleasure. Here we have found an outward\
sign of true education, at once obvious and infallible; A
namely, that every pupil on whom this education is \
brought to bear, without exception and irrespective of
differences in natural talent, learns with pleasure and love, /
purely for the sake of learning and for no other reason. '
We have discovered the means of kindling this pure love
of learning ; it is to- stimulate directly the spontaneous
activity of the pupil and to make this the basis of all
knowledge, so that whatever is learnt is learnt through it..

26 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

The first important point in the art of education is
just to stimulate this personal activity of the pupil in
something known to us. If we succeed in this, it is
simply a question of starting from that and of maintaining
the stimulated activity in ever new life. This is possible
only where progress is regular, and where every mistake
in education is discovered immediately through the
failure of what was intended. We have, therefore, found
/ also the link whereby the intended result is inseparably

/ connected with the method planned, namely, the eternal,
universal, and fundamental law of man's mental nature,

I that he must directly engage in mental activity.

20. Should anyone, misled by our usual daily experi
ence, doubt the very existence of such a fundamental
law, we would remind him over and over again that man
is indeed by nature merely material and self-seeking,
so long as immediate necessity and present material need
spur him on, and that he does not let any spiritual need
or feeling of consideration prevent him from satisfying
/ that material need. But when it is satisfied, he has
little inclination to let his fancy dwell on the painful
image of it, or to keep it in his mind. He is much more
inclined to free his thoughts and turn them without
restraint to the consideration of whatever attracts the
attention of his senses. Nor, indeed, does he scorn a
poetic flight to ideal worlds, for he has by nature but little
interest in the temporal, in order that his taste for the
eternal may have scope for development. This is proved
by the history of all ancient peoples, and by the various
observations and discoveries which have come down to us
from them. It is proved in our day by the observation
of races that are still savage, provided, of course, their
climate does not treat them far too unkindly, and by the
observation of our own children. It is proved even by

GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 27

the candid confession of the opponents of ideals, who com
plain that it is a far more disagreeable business to learn
names and dates than to rise into this empty (as it appears
to them) world of ideas ; but who would themselves, it
seems, if they might indulge, rather do the latter than the
former. In place of this natural freedom from care
there appears anxiety, in which tomorrow's hunger and
all possible future states of hunger in their yhole long
series hang over even him who is satiated, as the one
thing that occupies his mind and evermore goads and
drives him on. In our age this is caused artificially, in
the Boy by the repression of his natural freedom from care,
in the man by the endeavour to be considered prudent,
a reputation which falls to the lot only of him who does
not lose sight of that point of view for a moment. This,
then, is not the natural disposition with which we should
have to reckon, but a corruption imposed by force on
reluctant nature, which vanishes when that force is no
longer applied.

2 1 . This education, which stimulates directly the mental
activity of the pupil, produces knowledge, we said above.
This gives us the opportunity of distinguishing still more
clearly the new education from the old. //The new educa-1-
tion, in fact, aims especially and directly only at stimulat- \
ing regular and progressive mental activity.)/ Knowledge,
as we saw above, results only incidentally and as an
inevitable consequence. Now, if it is only in such
knowledge that our pupil can conceive the image of real
life which shall stimulate him to serious activity when he
becomes a man, knowledge is certainly an important
part of the training which is to be obtained. Yet it
cannot be said that the new education aims directly
at such knowledge ; knowledge is only incidental to it.
On the other hand, the old education aimed definitely

28 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

at knowledge, and at a certain amount of some subject of
knowledge. Besides, there is a great difference between
that kind of knowledge which results incidentally from
the new education and that at which the old education
aimed. vjThe former results in knowledge of the laws which
condition all possible mental activity. For instance, if
the pupil tries in free fancy to enclose a space with
straight lines, this is the first stimulation of his mental
activity. If in these attempts he discovers that he cannot
enclose a space with fewer than three straight lines, this
is the incidental knowledge resulting from another quite
different activity, that of the faculty of knowledge,
which restricts the free power first stimulated. This
education, therefore, results at the very outset in know
ledge which transcends all experience, which is abstract,
absolute, and strictly universal, and which includes within
itself beforehand all subsequently possible experience.
On the other hand, the old education was concerned, as a
rule, only with the actual qualities of things as they are
and as they should be believed and noted, without anyone
being able to assign a reason for them. It aimed, therefore,
at purely passive reception by means of the power of
memory, which was completely at the service of things.
It was, therefore, impossible to have any idea of the rnind
as an independent original principle ..af jthingsjthemselves.
Modern education must not think it can defend itself
against this reproach by appealing to its oft-declared
contempt for mechanical rote-learning and to its well-
known masterpieces in the Socratic manner. On this
point it was fully informed long ago from another source
that these Socratic reasonings are also learned by heart
purely mechanically, and that this is a much more dan
gerous form of rote-learning, because it makes the pupil
who does not think appear capable of thinking. It was

GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 29

informed, too, that no other result was possible with the
material it employed to develop spontaneous thought,
and that for this purpose one must commence with
entirely different material. This quality of the old
education shows clearly why the pupil generally learned
unwillingly, and therefore slowly and but little, and why,
because learning itself was not attractive, extraneous
motives had to be introduced ; it also shows the reason
for the exceptions to the rule hitherto. Memory,
employed alone and without serving any other purpose
in the mind, is a passive condition rather than an activity
of the mind, and it is easy to understand that the pupil
will be very unwilling to accept this passive state. Besides,
acquaintance with things and with the properties of_
things which are quite strange, and which have not the
slightest interest for him, is a poor recompense for the
passivity inflicted on him. His aversion, therefore, had
to be overcome by holding out hopes of the usefulness of
such knowledge in the future, by asserting that by it
alone could a living and a reputation be obtained, and
even by direct immediate punishment and reward. Thus
from the very outset, knowledge was set up as a servant
of material welfare ; and this education, which was
described above, from the point of view of its content, as
simply incapable of developing a moral sense, was in fact
obliged, in order to reach the pupil at all, to implant and
develop moral corruption in him and to unite its own
interest with that of this corruption. Further, it will
be found that the natural talent, which, as an exception
to the rule, learned willingly and therefore well in schools
under the old education, overcame the moral corruption
of the environment and kept its character pure, thanks
to this greater love that governed it. Owing to its
natural inclination it acquired a practical interest in

30 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

these subjects, and, guided by its happy instinct, it aimed
at producing, far more than at merely receiving, such
knowledge. Then, in regard to the subjects taught,
this education usually succeeded best, in exception to the
rule, with those which it allowed to be practised actively.
For instance, the classical language1 in which writing and
speaking were the aim was nearly always fairly well learned ;
whereas the other language,2 in which practice in writing
and speaking was neglected, was usually learned very
badly and superficially, and was forgotten in later years.
It follows, therefore, from previous experience, that it is
the development of mental activity by means of instruc
tion which alone produces pleasure in knowledge simply
as such, and so keeps the mind open for moral training ;
on the other hand, purely passive receptivity paralyses
and kills knowledge, just as it inevitably corrupts the moral
sense completely.

22. To return again to the pupil under the new
education. It is evident that, spurred on by his love,
he will learn much and, since he understands everything
in its relations and immediately puts into action what he
has understood, he will learn it correctly and will never
forget it. Yet that is but incidental. More important
is the fact that this love exalts his personality and intro
duces him systematically and deliberately into a wholly
new order of things, into which hitherto only a few,
favoured by God, came by accident. The love which
spurs him on aims not at sensuous enjoyment, which quite
ceases to be a motive for him, but at mental activity and
the law of that activity for their own sakes. Now, it is
not this mental activity in general with which morality
is concerned ; for this purpose a special direction must
be given to that activity. Yet this love is the specific
1 [Latin]. 2 [Greek].

GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 31

quality and form of tbe moral will. This method of
mental training is, therefore, the immediate preparation
for the moral ; it completely destroys the root of immor
ality by never allowing sensuous enjoyment to become
the motive. Formerly, that was the first motive to be
stimulated and developed, because it was believed that
otherwise the pupil could not be influenced or controlled
at all. If the moral motive had to be developed after
wards, it came too late and found the heart already
occupied by, and filled with, another love. On the other\
hand, in the new education the training of a pure will
is to be the first aim, so that if, later, selfishness should
awake within, or be stimulated from without, it may come
too late, and find no room for itself in a heart which is
already occupied by something else. /

23. It is essential both for this first aim and also fort
the second, which will be mentioned soon, that from the^\
very beginning the pupil should be continuously and ^
completely under the influence of this education, and J
.shoulcLbe separated altogether from the community, and J
kept from all contact with it. He must not even hear *
that our vital impulses and actions can be directed towards
our maintenance and welfare, nor that we may learn for
that reason, nor that learning may be of some use for that
purpose. It follows that mental development should be
produced in him only in the manner described above, that

he should be occupied with it unceasingly, and that this
method of instruction should on no account be exchanged
for that which requires the opposite material motive.

24. But, although this mental development does not
let self-seeking come to life and provides indeed the form
oLa moj^Ljvill, it is not yet, however; the moral will
itself. If the new education which we propose did not
go further, it would at best train excellent men of learn-

32 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

ing, as in the past, of whom only a few are needed, and

who would be able to do no more for our true human

and national aim than such men have done hitherto —

exhort, and exhort again, get themselves wondered at,

and occasionally abused. But it is clear, as I have already

said, that this free activity of the mind is developed with

[ the intention that by it the pupil may voluntarily create

j the image of a moral order of life that actually exists,

j may lay hold of this image with the love that is also

I already developed in him, and be spurred on by this love

I to realize it actually in and by his life. The question is,

how can the new education prove to itself that it has

achieved this, its true and final purpose with the pupil.

25. Above all it is clear that the mental activity of
the pupil, which has been exercised already on other
objects, should be stimulated to create an image of the
I social order of mankind as it ought to be, simply in accord-
/ ance with the law of reason. Whether the image created
by the pupil be true can be judged most easily by an
education which alone is in possession of this true image.
Whether it is created by the pupil's spontaneous activity,
and not simply passively accepted and credulously repeated
in school fashion, and, further, whether it is raised to the
proper clearness and vividness, education will be able
to judge, just as it has hitherto correctly judged other
things in this respect. Yet all this is a matter for mere
knowledge, and remains within the domain of knowledge,
which is very accessible in this system of education.
It is a very different and a higher question, whether the
pupil is so filled with ardent love for such an order of
things, that it will be utterly impossible for him not to
desire it and to work with all his strength to promote it,
when freed from the guidance of education and left inde
pendent. This question, undoubtedly, not words and

GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 33

tests which are arranged in words, but only the appear
ance of deeds, can decide.

26. This is my solution of the problem raised by this last
consideration. Under the new system of education the
pupils, although separated from the adult community,
will, nevertheless, undoubtedly live together among them
selves, and so form a separate and self-contained com
munity with its organization precisely defined, based on
the nature of things and demanded throughout by reason.
The very first image of a social order which the pupil's
mind should be stimulated to create will be that of the
community in which he himself lives. He will be inwardly
compelled, therefore, to fashion this order for himself
bit for bit, just as it is actually sketched out for him, and
to conceive it in all its parts as absolutely inevitable
because of its elements. This, again, is merely the work
of knowledge. Now, in real life under this social arrange- ,
ment every individual has continually to abstain, for the
sake of the community, from much that he could do
without hesitation if he were alone. It will be fitting,
therefore, that the legislation, and the instruction con
cerning the constitution which is to be based thereon,
should represent to each individual all the others asj
animated by a love of order exalted to the ideal, which!
perhaps no one person really has, but which all ought/ \
to have. It will be fitting, too, that the legislation should1/
consequently maintain a high standard of severity,
and should prohibit the doing of many things. Such
, which simply must exist and on which the

existence of the cornmunity depends, are to be enforced
in case of necessity by fear of immediate punishment,
and this penal law must be administered absolutely
without indulgence or exception. This application of
does not impair in any way the morality

3

34 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

of the pupil, for in this case he is incited, not to do good,
but only to abstain from what under this system of govern
ment is evil. Moreover, the instruction concerning the
constitution must make it quite clear that anyone who
still needs the idea of punishment, or even indeed to
revive that idea by suffering punishment, is at a very low
stage of civilization. Yet, in spite of all this, it is clear
that in these circumstances the pupil will be unable to
show his good will outwardly, and education will be
unable to estimate it, since no one can ever know whether
obedience results from love of order or from fear of
punishment.

On the other hand, in the following circumstances
such an estimate is possible. The system of government
must be arranged in such a way that the individual must
not only abstain, but will also work and act, for the sake
of the community. Physical exercises, the mechanical,
but here idealized, work of farming, and trades of various
kinds, in addition to the development of the mind by
learning, are included in this commonwealth of pupils.
A fundamental principle of the system of government will
be that anyone who may excel in one of these depart
ments will be expected to help to instruct the others in
it, and to undertake superintendence and responsibilities
of various kinds. Anyone who discovers an improvement,
or understands most clearly, and before the others, an im
provement proposed by a teacher, is expected to work it
out by his own efforts, without being set free for this
purpose from his other personal tasks of learning and work
ing which are understood. Everyone is supposed to fulfil
this expectation voluntarily, not compulsorily ; for anyone
who is unwilling is free to refuse. He is to expect neither
reward for it, for under this system of government all are
quite equal in regard to work and pleasure, nor even praise,

GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION

tity is that
'ne enjoys /
mmunity, J

for the attitude of mind prevailing in the community
it is just everyone's duty to act thus ; but he alone
the pleasure of acting and working for the community,
and of succeeding, if that should fall to his lot. Under
this system of government, therefore, the acquirement
of greater skill and the effort spent therein will result
only in fresh effort and work, and it will be the very pupil
who is abler than the rest who must often watch while
others sleep, and reflect while others play.

27. To some pupils all this will be quite clear and
intelligible. Yet they will continue to undertake that
initial toil and the further labours that result from it
so joyfully that they may be relied on with certainty.
They will remain strong, and become even stronger, in
their feeling of power and activity. Such pupils education
can confidently send out into the world ; it has achieved
its purpose with them. Their love has been kindled and
burns down to the root of their vital impulse ; from now
onwards it will lay hold of everything, without excep
tion, that comes in contact with this vital impulse. In
the larger community, which they now enter, they can
never be anything but the steady and constant beings
they have been in the little community they are now j
leaving.

The pupil has in this way been fully prepared for the
demands which the world will immediately and certainly
make of him. What education, in the name of this
world, demands of him has been done. But he is still
not perfect in and for himself, and what he himself can
claim from education has not yet been done. When this
demand, too, has been met, he will be able to satisfy also
the demands which, in special circumstances, a higher
world, in the name of the present world, may make of him.

THIRD ADDRESS

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION (continued)

28. THE essential feature of the proposed new education,
so far as it was described in the last address, consisted
in this, that it is the sure and deliberate art of training
the pupil to pure morality. To pure morality, I said ;
the morality to which it educates exists as an original,
independent, and separate thing, which develops spon
taneously its own life, but is not, like the legality hitherto
often aimed at, linked with and implanted in some other
non-moral impulse, for the satisfaction of which it serves.
It is the sure and deliberate art of this moral education,
I said. It does not proceed aimlessly and at random,
but according to a fixed rule well known to it, and is
certain of its success. Its pupil goes forth at the proper
time as a fixed and unchangeable machine produced by
this art, which indeed could not go otherwise than as
it has been regulated by the art, and needs no help at all,
but continues of itself according to its own law.

This education certainly does train also the pupil's
mind, and this mental training is indeed the first thing
with which it commences its task. Yet this mental
development is not the chief and original aim, but only
the condition and means of applying moral training to
the pupil. This mental training, however, though
acquired but incidentally, remains an ineradicable pos-

36

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 37

session of the pupil's life and the ever-burning lamp of
his moral love. However great or small the total know
ledge which he may have obtained from education, he
will certainly have brought away from it a mind which,
during the whole of his life, will be able to grasp every
truth, the knowledge of which is essential to him, and
which will remain continually susceptible to instruction
from others, as well as capable of reflecting for itself.

This was the point we reached in the last address in
the description of the new education. At the end of it
we remarked that thereby it was not yet completed, but
that it had still to solve another problem different from
those already set. We proceed now to the task of defining
this problem more clearly.

29. The pupil of this education is not merely a member
of human society here on this earth and for the short
span of life which is permitted him on it. He is also, and
is undoubtedly acknowledged by education to be, a link
in the eternal chain of spiritual life in a higher social
order. A training which has undertaken to include the
whole of his being should undoubtedly lead him to a
knowledge of this higher order also. Just as it led him to
sketch out for himself by his own activity an image of
that moral world-order which never is, but always is to
be, so must it lead him to create in thought by the same
self-activity an image of that supersensuous world-order
in which nothing becomes, and which never has become,
but which simply is for ever ; all this in such a way that
he intimately understands and perceives that it could
not be otherwise. Under proper guidance he will
complete his attempts at such an image, and find at the
end that nothing really exists but life, the spiritual
life which lives in thought, and that everything else
does not really exist, but only appears to exist. The

38 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

reason for this appearance, a reason that results from
thought, he will likewise grasp, even if only in general.
Further, he will perceive that, amid the various forms
which it received, not by chance, but according to a law
founded in God Himself, the spiritual life which alone
really exists is one, the divine life itself, which exists and
manifests itself only in living thought. He will thus

f learn to know and keep holy his own and every other
spiritual life as an eternal link in the chain of the mani-

V festation of the divine life. Only in immediate contact
with God and in the direct emanation of his life from
Him will he find life, light, and happiness, but in any
separation from that immediate contact, death, darkness,
and misery. In a word, this development will train him
I to religion ; and this religion of the indwelling of our
life in God shall indeed prevail and be carefully fostered
in the new era. On the other hand, the religion of the
past separated the spiritual life from the divine, and only
by apostasy against the divine life could it procure for the
spiritual life the absolute existence which it had ascribed
to it. It used God as a means to introduce self-seeking
into other worlds after the death of the mortal body,
and through fear and hope of these other worlds to rein
force for the present world the self-seeking which would
otherwise have remained weak. Such a religion, which
was obviously a servant of selfishness, shall indeed be borne
to the grave along with the past age. In the new era
eternity does not dawn first on yon side of the grave,
but comes into the midst of the present life ; while self-
seeking is dismissed from serving and from ruling, and
(departs, taking its servants with it.
Education to true religion is, therefore, the final task
of the new education.
Whether in the creation of the necessary image of the

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 39

supersensuous world-order the pupil has really acted
spontaneously, and whether the image created is abso
lutely correct and thoroughly clear and intelligible, educa
tion can easily judge in the same way as in the case of
other objects of knowledge, for that, too, is in the domain
of knowledge.

30. But here, too, the more important question is :
How can education estimate and guarantee that this
knowledge of religion will not remain dead and cold,
but will be expressed in the actual life of the pupil ?
The premise of this question is the answer to another :
How, and in what manner, is religion shown in life ?

In everyday life, and in a well-ordered community,
there is no need whatever of religion to regulate HfeJ
True morality suffices wholly for that purpose. In this
respect, therefore, religion is not practical, and cannot
and shall not become practical. Religion is simply^
knowledge ; it makes man quite clear and intelligible
to himself, answers the highest question which he can
raise, solves for him the last contradiction, and so brings
into his understanding complete unity with itself and
perfect clearness. It is his complete salvation and deliver
ance from every foreign bond. Education, therefore, owes
him this religion as his due absolutely, and without ulterior
purpose. Religion, as a motive, has its only sphere of
action in a very immoral and corrupt society, or where
man's field of activity lies not within the social order but
beyond it, and rather has continually to create it anew
and to maintain it ; as in the case of the ruler, who often
could not, without religion, perform the duties of his
office with a good conscience. Such a case is not the
concern of an education intended for everyone and for
the whole nation. When, as in the former case, work is
continued unceasingly, although man's understanding

40 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

has a clear perception of the incorrigibility of the age ;
when the toil of sowing is courageously borne without
any prospect of harvest ; when good is done even to the
ungrateful, and those who curse are blessed with deeds
and gifts, although it is clearly foreseen that they will
curse again ; when after a hundred failures man persists
in faith and in love ; then, it is not mere morality which is
the motive, for that requires a purpose, but it is religion,
the submission to a higher and unknown law, the humble
silence before God, the sincere love of His life that is
manifested in us, which alone and for its own sake shall
be saved, where the eye sees nothing else to save.

31. Hence, the knowledge of religion, obtained by the
pupils of the new education in their little community
in which they grow up, cannot and shall not become
practical. This community is well ordered, and in it
whatever is properly attempted always succeeds ; besides,
the yet tender age of man shall be maintained in simplicity
and in quiet faith in his race. Let the knowledge of
its knavery remain reserved for personal experience in
mature and stronger years.

It is, therefore, only in these more mature years and in
the life of earnest purpose, long after education has left
him to himself, that the pupil, if his social relations
should advance from simple to higher stages, could need
his knowledge of religion as a motive. Now, how shall
education, which cannot test the pupil in this while he
is in its hands, nevertheless be sure that this motive will
work infallibly, if only the need arise ? I reply : In this
way ; the pupil is so trained that none of the knowledge
he possesses remains dead and cold within him when
the possibility of its coming to life arises, but it all inevit
ably influences life so soon as life requires it. I shall
give further reasons for this statement in a moment, and

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 41

so elevate the whole conception which has been treated
in this and in the last address, and fit it into a larger
system of knowledge. On this larger system itself I
shall shed new light and greater clearness by that con
ception. But first let me describe exactly the true nature
of the new education, a general description of which I
have just ended.

I 32. This education, then, no longer appears, as it did
at the beginning of our address to-day, simply as the art

, of training the pupil to pure morality, but is rather the
art of training the whole man completely and fully for
manhood. In this connection there are two essentials.
First, in regard to form, it is the real living human being, \
not simply the shadow and phantom of a man, who is
to be trained to the very roots of his life. Then, in
regard to content, all the essential component parts of
man are to be developed equally and without exception.
These component parts are understanding and will ; and
education has to aim at clearness in the former and at
purity in the latter. Now, in regard to clearness in the
former, two main questions must be raised ; first, what
it is that the pure will really wishes, and by what means
this wish is to be attained ; under this head is included
all other knowledge which is to be taught to the pupil ;
secondly, what this pure will is in principle and essence ;
under this head is included knowledge of religion. The
essentials mentioned, and their development until they
influence life, education demands absolutely, and does not
intend to exempt anyone from them in the slightest
degree, for everyone must be a complete man. As to
what anyone may become in addition, and as to the par
ticular form general human nature may take or receive
in him, this does not concern universal education,
and lies beyond its scope.

42 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

33. I proceed now, by means of the following proposi
tions, to give the further reasons I promised for the
statement that in the pupil of the new education no
knowledge can remain dead, and to fulfil my intention of
elevating into a connected system all that has been said.

From what has been said it follows that from the
point of view of their education there are two quite
different .and entirely opposite classes of men. At
first every human being (and, therefore, also these two
classes) is alike in this, that underlying the various
manifestations of his life there is one impulse, which amid
all change persists unchanged and is always the same.
Incidentally, the self-comprehension of this impulse
and its translation into ideas creates the world, and there
is no other world but this world which is created thus
in thought, not freely but of necessity. Now this impulse,
which must always be translated into consciousness (and
in this respect, once again, the two classes are alike), can be
so translated in two ways, according to the two different
kinds of consciousness. It is in the method of translation
and of self-comprehension that the two classes differ.

The first kind of consciousness, that which is the first
in point of time to develop, is that of dim feeling. Where
this feeling exists, the fundamental impulse is most
usually and regularly comprehended as the individual's
love of self ; indeed, dim feeling shows this self at first
only as something that wills to live and to prosper.
Hence, material self-seeking arises as the real motive and
developing power of such a life engrossed in translating
its original impulse thus. So long as man continues to
understand himself in this way, so long must he act selfishly,
being unable to do otherwise ; and, amid the ceaseless
change in his life, it is this self-seeking alone that persists,
always the same and to be expected with certainty. Thr

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 43

dim feeling can also, as an unusual exception to the
rule, pass beyond the personal self, and comprehend the
fundamental impulse as a desire for a dimly-felt different
order of things. Thence arises the life, adequately
described by us elsewhere, which, exalted above self-
seeking, is motived by ideas, dim indeed but none the
less ideas, and in which reason rules as an instinct. Such
comprehension of the fundamental impulse merely by
dim feeling is the characteristic of the first class of men,
who are trained, not by education, but by their own
selves ; this class in turn consists of two species, which
are distinct for some reason that is incomprehensible
and quite beyond the art of man to discover.

Clear knowledge is the second kind of consciousness »
which does not, as a rule, develop of itself, but must bq
carefully fostered in the community. If the fundamental
impulse of man were embraced in this principle, it would
produce a second class of men quite different from the
first. Such knowledge, which embraces fundamental love
itself, does not leave us cold and indifferent, as indeed
other knowledge can, but its object is loved above every
thing, for that object is but the interpretation and
translation of our original love itself. Other knowledge
embraces something alien, which remains alien and
leaves us cold ; this knowledge embraces the knower
himself and his love, and he loves it. Now, although it
is the same original love appearing only in different
forms which spurs on both classes, yet disregarding this
circumstance we can say that man is governed in the one
case by dim feelings, in the other by clear knowledge.

Now, that such clear knowledge shall be a direct
incentive in life, and shall be capable of being relied on
with certainty depends, as has been said, on this, that
the real true love of man is to be interpreted by it, that

44 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

this is to be immediately clear to him, and that along
with the interpretation the feeling of that love is to be
/ stimulated in him and experienced by him. Knowledge,
/ therefore, is never to be developed in him without love
/ being developed at the same time, because otherwise he
/ would remain cold ; nor is love ever to be developed with
out knowledge being developed at the same time, because
\ otherwise his motive would be a dim feeling. At every step
\ in the training, then, it is the whole man as a unit that is
\ fashioned. The man who is always treated by education
1 as an indivisible whole will remain so in the future, and all
\ knowledge will inevitably become for him a motive in life.

34. Clear knowledge instead of dim feeling being
j thus made the first and true foundation and starting-
\ point of life, ^sel^seeking is_ avoided altogether and cheated

of its development. For it is dim feeling alone that
represents to man his ego as in need of pleasure and
afraid of pain. The clear idea does not represent it
thus to him, but shows it rather as a member of a moral
order ; and there is a love for that order which is kindled
and developed along with the development of the idea.
This education has nothing at all to do with self-seeking,
the root of which, dim feeling, it kills through clearness.
It neither attacks it nor develops it ; it has nothing at
all to do with it. Even if, later, it were possible for this
self-seeking to stir, it would find the heart already filled
with a higher love which would deny it a place.

35. Now this fundamental impulse of man, when
translated into clear knowledge, does not concern itself
with a world which is already given and existent, which
can be accepted, indeed, merely passively just as it is, and
in which a love that stimulates to original creative activity
would find no sphere of action for itself. On the contrary,
exalted to knowledge, it is concerned with a world that

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 45

is_to be, an a priori world that exists in the future and'
ever remains in the future. The divine life, therefore,
that underlies all appearance reveals itself never as a fixed
and known entity, but as something that is to be ; and
after it has become what it was to be, it will reveal itself
again to all eternity as something that is to be. This
divine life, then, never appears in the death of the fixed
entity, but remains continually in the form of ever-
flowing life. The direct appearance and manifestation
of God is love. The interpretation of this love by
knowledge first fixes an existence, an existence that ever
is to be ; this is the only real world, in so far as a world
can be real. The other world, on the contrary, which
is given and found existing by us, is but the shadow and
phantom, out of which knowledge builds up for its inter
pretation of love a fixed form and a visible body. This^
other world is the means for, and the condition of, the
perception of the higher world that is in itself invisible.
Not even in that higher world does God reveal Himself
directly, but there too only through the medium of the
one, pure, unchangeable, and formless love ; it is in this
love alone that He appears directly. To this love there
is jpined^ntuitiyeknowledge, which brings^mth it ~an
image drawn from itself, with which to clothe theobj ect
of love that is, in itself invisible. Yet each time it is
opposed by love, and thereby stimulated again to make a
new form, which is once again opposed in just the same
way. Only thus, by fusion with intuition, does love too,
which purely in itself is one and quite incapable of pro
gress, of infinity, and of eternity, become like it eternal
! and infinite. The image mentioned just now, which is
; supplied from knowledge itself, considered by itself alone
1 and without application to the love that is clearly per-
' ceived, is the fixed and given world, or nature. The

46 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

delusion that God's presence reveals itself in this nature
in any way directly, or otherwise than through the
agencies above mentioned, arises from darkness of mind
and profanity of will.

36. The complete avoidance of dim feeling as a
solvent of love and the setting up in its stead of clear
knowledge as the usual solvent, as has already been men
tioned, can happen only as the result of a deliberate art
of education, and hitherto has not happened in this way.
By this means too, as we have also seen, a type of man
quite different from men as they have usually been
hitherto will be introduced and become the rule. As the
result of this education, therefore, a totally new order of
things and a new creation would begin. Now, in this
new form, mankind would fashion itself by means of itself,
for mankind considered as the present generation educates
itself as the future generation ; and mankind can do this
only by means of knowledge, the one common true light
and air of this world which can be freely imparted and
which binds the spiritual world into a unity. Formerly
mankind became just what it did become and was able to
become ; the time for such chance development has gone
by ; for where mankind has developed most it has become
nothing. If it is not to remain in this nothingness, it
must henceforward make itself all that it is yet to become.
The real destiny of the human race on earth, I said in ;
the lectures of which these are the continuation, is in
freedom to make itself what it really is originally. Now,
this making of itself deliberately, and according to rule,
must have a beginning somewhere and at some moment
in space and time. Thereby a second great period, one
of free and deliberate development of the human race,
would appear in place of the first period, one of develop-
I ment that is not free. We are of opinion that, in regard

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 47

to time, this is the very time, and that now the race is
exactly midway between the two great epochs of its
life on earth. But, in regard to space, we believe that it
is first of all the Germans who are called upon to begin
the new era as pioneers and models for the rest of mankind. -

37. Yet even this wholly new creation will not result |
as a sudden change from what has gone before ; it is
rather, especially with the Germans, the true natural
continuation and consequence of the past. It is apparent
and, I believe, generally granted that the impulse and
effort of the age has been seeking to dispel dim feelings
and to secure the sole mastery for clearness and knowledge. ,
This effort has been quite successful at least in this,
that it has completely revealed the nothingness of the
past. The impulse towards clearness should not be
rooted out, nor should dull acquiescence in dim feeling
again obtain the mastery. Rather must this impulse be
developed still further and introduced into higher spheres,

so that when the Nothing has been revealed, the Some
thing, the positive truth that sets up something real,
may likewise become manifest. The world of given and
self-forming existence, which arises from dim feeling, has
been submerged and shall remain below the surface.
The world, however, which arises from original clearness,
the world of existence that is ever to be evolved from the
mind, shall dawn and shine forth in its splendour.

38. Truly the prophecy of a new life in such forms
will probably seem strange to our age, which would
scarcely have the courage to take this promise to itself,
if it were to look solely at the tremendous difference
between its own prevailing opinions on these matters
and those which have been expressed as principles of
the new era. I will not speak of the education which
in the past, as a rule, only the higher classes received, as a

48 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

privilege not to be extended to everyone, and which was
quite silent concerning any supersensuous world, and
strove merely to produce some skill in the affairs of the
sensuous world. It was obviously the worse kind of
education. But I will look only at what was popular
education and could also, in a certain very limited sense,
be called national education, which did not preserve com
plete silence concerning a supersensuous world. What
were the doctrines of this education ? We put forward
as the fundamental assumption of the new education
that there is at the root of man's nature a pure pleasure
in the good, which can be developed to such an extent
that it becomes impossible for him to leave undone what
he knows to be good and to do instead what he knows to
be evil. The existing education, on the other hand, has
not only assumed, but has also taught its pupils from
early youth onwards, that man has a natural aversion from
God's commandments, and, further, that it is absolutely
impossible for him to keep them. What else can be ex
pected of such instruction, if it is taken seriously and
believed, than that each individual should yield to his
absolutely unchangeable nature, should not try to achieve
what has once been represented to him as impossible,
and should not desire to be better than he and all
others can be ? Indeed, he accepts the baseness attri
buted to him, the baseness of acknowledging his natural
sinfulness and wickedness, because such baseness in God's
sight is represented to him as the sole means of coming to
terms with Him. If perchance such a statement as ours
comes to his ears, he cannot but think that someone merely
wants to play a bad joke on him, because he has an ever-
present inward feeling, which to him is perfectly clear,
that this statement is not true, and that the opposite
alone is true. We presuppose a knowledge, not dependent

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 49

on any given existence, but on the contrary itself giving
laws for that existence, and propose to immerse every
child of man in this knowledge from the very beginning,
and to keep him from that time onwards continually
under its rule. On the other hand, we regard that
nature of things which can be learned only from history
as an insignificant accessory that follows of' itself. When
we do all this, then the ripest products of the old educa
tion oppose us, reminding us that it is well known there
is no a priori knowledge, and saying they would like to
know how there can be any knowledge except through
experience. In order that this supersenuous and a priori
world should not reveal itself in the place where this
seemed unavoidable, namely, in the possibility of a
knowledge of God, and that even in God Himself there
should be no spiritual spontaneity, but that passive sub
mission should remain all in all — to meet this danger the
old education has hit upon the daring expedient of making
the existence of .God an historical fact, the truth of which
is established by the examination of evidence.

So in truth the matter stands ; yet our generation
should not therefore despair of itself, for these and all
other similar phenomena are themselves not independent,
but only flowers and fruits of the uncultivated root of
the past. If only this generation submits quietly to the 1
grafting of a new, nobler, and stronger root, the old will
be killed, and its flower and fruits, deprived of further
nourishment, will of themselves wither and fall. As yet '
this generation cannot believe our words ; it is inevitable
that they seem to it like fairy tales. Nor do we want such
belief ; we want only room to work and to act. After
wards it will see, and it will believe its own eyes.

39. Everyone who is acquainted with the productions
of recent years will have noticed long ago that here again

4

50 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

those principles and views are expressed which modern
German philosophy since its origin has preached again
and again, because it could do nothing else but preach.
It is now sufficiently clear that these sermons have
vanished without result into thin air, and the reason for
this is evident too. A living thing affects only something
living ; but in the actual life of the age there is no rela
tionship at all with this philosophy, which goes its own
way in a sphere that is not yet revealed to this age, and
which calls for sense-organs that it has not yet developed.
(This philosophy is not at home in our age, but is an
I anticipation of time, and a principle of life ready in
advance for a generation which shall first awake to light
in it. It must give up all claim on the present genera
tion ; but, in order not to be idle until then, let it now
undertake the task of fashioning for itself the generation
to which it does belong. As soon as this, its immediate
business, has become clear to it, it will be able to live in
peace and friendship with a generation which in other
respects does not please it. The education which we have
hitherto described is likewise the education for this
philosophy. Yet in a certain sense it alone can be the
educator in this education ; and so it had to be a fore
runner neither understood nor acceptable. But the
time will come when it will be understood and received
with joy ; and that is why our generation should not
despair of itself.

40. Let this generation hearken to the vision of an
ancient prophet in a situation no less lamentable. Thus
says the prophet l by the river of Chebar, the comforter
of those in captivity, not in their own, but in a foreign
land. " The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried
me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the
1 [Ezekiel xxxvii. i-io. I have used the Authorised Version here.]

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 51

midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused
me to pass by them round about : and, behold, there
were very many in the open valley ; and, lo, they were
very dry. And He said unto me, Son of man, can these
bones live ? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.
Again He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and
say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the
Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones,
Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall
live : and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up
flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath
in you, and ye shall live ; and ye shall know that I am
the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded : and
as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking,
and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And
when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon
them, and the skin covered them above ; but there was
no breath in them. Then said He unto me, Prophesy
unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the
wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four
winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they
may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and
the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood
up upon their feet, an exceeding great army."

Though the elements of our higher spiritual life may
be just as dried up, and though the bonds of our national
unity may lie just as torn asunder and as scattered in
wild disorder as the bones of the slain in the prophecy,
though they may have whitened and dried for centuries
in tempests, rainstorms, and burning sunshine, the
quickening breath of the spiritual world has not yet
ceased to blow. It will take hold, too, of the dead bones
of our national body, and join them together, that they /
may stand glorious in new 'and radiant life. '

FOURTH ADDRESS

THE CHIEF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GERMANS AND
THE OTHER PEOPLES OF TEUTONIC DESCENT

(41. WE have said that the means of educating a new race
of men, which is being put forward in these addresses,
must first be_ applied by Germans to Germans, and that
it concerns our nation in a special and peculiar way.
This statement also requires proof ; and here, as before,
we shall begin with what is highest and most general,
showing what is the characteristic of the German as
such, apart from the fate that has now befallen him ;
showing, too, that this has been his characteristic ever
since^ he began to— exist ; ancTpointing out how this
fi characteristic in itself gives him alone, above all other
f European nations, the capacity of responding to such an
I education.

42. In the first place, the German is a branch of the
Teutonic race. Of the latter it is sufficient to say here
that its mission wasjto_cgmbinejthe socialorder_established
in ancient Europe with the true jejigion preserved in
ancient jVsia, and in this way to develop in and by itself
a new and different age after the ancient world had
perished. Further, it is sufficient to distinguish the German
particularly, in contrast only to the other Teutonic peoples
who came into existence with him. Other neo-European
nations, as, for instance, those of Slav descent, do not seem
as yet to have developed distinctly enough in comparison

52

GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 53

with the rest of Europe to make it possible to give a
definite description of them ; whereas others of the same
Teutonic descent, as, for instance, the Scandinavians,
although the main reason for differentiation (which will
be stated immediately) does not apply to them, are yet ~
regarded here as indisputably Germans, and included in
all the general consequences of our observations.

43. But at the very outset the special observations
which we are now on the point of making must be pre
faced by the following remark. As the cause of the
differentiation that has taken place in what was originally
one stock I shall cite an event which, considered merely
as an event, lies clear and incontestable before the eyes
of all. I shall then adduce some manifestations of the
differentiation that has taken place ; and these manifesta
tions, considered merely as events, could perhaps be
made just as clear and obvious. But with regard to the
connection of the latter, as consequences, with the
former, as their cause, and with regard to the deduction
of the consequences from the cause, I cannot, speaking
generally, reckon upon being equally clear and con
vincing to everyone. It is true that in this matter also
I am not making entirely new statements which no one
has heard of before ; on the contrary, there are among
us many individuals who are either well prepared for
such a view of the matter, or perhaps already familiar
with it. Among the majority, however, there are in
circulation ideas about the subject of our discussion
which differ greatly from our own. To correct such
ideas, and to refute all the objections to single points
that might be raised by those who are not practised in
taking a comprehensive view of a subject, would far
exceed the limits of our time and our intention. I must
content myself with placing before such people, merely

54 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

as a subject for their further consideration, what I have
to say in this connection, remarking that in my system of
thought it does not stand so separate and detached as
it appears in this place, nor is it without a foundation
in the depths of knowledge. I could not omit it entirely,
partly on account of the thoroughness of treatment
demanded by my whole subject, and partly because of
its important consequences, which will appear later in
the course of our addresses, and which are intimately
connected with our present design.

44. The first and immediately obvious difference
between the fortunes of t^e Germans and the other
branches which grew from the same root is this : the
former remained in the original^ dwelling-places of the
ancestraLstpck, whereas the latter emigrated to other
places ; the former retained and developed the original
language. of the ancestral stock, whereas the latter adopted
a foreign language and gradually reshaped it in a way of
their own. This earliest difference must be regarded as
the explanation of those which came later, e.g., that in

/fKe originaTtattefferTd^in accordance with Teutonic
primitive custom, there continuecTtirfaea, federation of

LStateTunS^fTTieaa^vSh limite3Tpowefs7wEereaT in the
foreign countries the form of government was brought
more in accordance with the existing Roman method,
and monarchies were established, etc. It is not these
later differences that explain the one first mentioned.

45. Now, of the changes which have been indicated,
the first, the change of home, is quite unimportant.
Man easily makes himself at home under any sky, and the

changed

by the place of abode, dominates and changes the latter
after its own pattern. Moreover, the variety of natural
influences in the region inhabitated by the Teutons is

GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 55

not very great. Just as little importance should be
attached to the fact that the Teutonic race has inter
mingled with the former inhabitants of the countries it
conquered ; for, after all, the victors and masters and
makers of the new people that arose from this inter
mingling were none but Teutons. Moreover, in the
mother-country there was an intermingling with Slavs
similar to that which took place abroad with Gauls,
Cantabrians, etc., and perhaps of no less extent ; so
that it would not be easy at the present day for any one
of the peoples descended from Teutons to demonstrate
a greater purity of descent than the others.

46. More important, however, and in my opinion the
cause of a complete contrast between the Germans and
the other peoples of Teutonic descent, is the second
change, the change ~o,f language. Here, as I wish to point
out distinctly at the very beginning, fit is not a question
of the special quality of the language retained by the one
branch or adopted by the other ; on the contrary, the
importance lies solely in the fact that in the one case
something native is_retained, while in the~ other case
something ^foreign is adopted. Nor is it a question of
the previous ancestry of those who continue to speak an
original language ; on the contrary, the importance
lies solely in the fact that this language continues to be
spoken, for ,rjiejfl are formed b^Janguage far more than""]

language is formed by men.

47. In order to make clear, so far as explanation is
possible and necessary in this place, the consequences of
such a difference in the creation of peoples, and to make
clear the particular kind of contrast in national character
istics that necessarily follows from this difference, I must
invite you to a consideration of the nature of language
in general.

56 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

Language in general, and especially the designation
of objects in language by sounds from the organs of
speech, is in no way dependent on arbitrary decisions
and agreements. On the contrary there is, to begin with,
a fundamental law, in accordance with which every idea
becomes in the human organs of speech one particular
sound and no other. Just as objects are represented in
the sense-organs of an individual by a definite form,
colour, etc., so they are represented in language, which is
the organ of social man, by a definite sound. It is not
really man that speaks, but human nature speaks in him
and announces itself to others of his kind. Hence one
should say : There is and can be but one single language.

Now indeed, and this is the second point, language
in this unity for man, simply as man, may never and no
where have arisen. Everywhere it may have been further
changed and formed by two groups of influences ; firstly,
those exerted on the organs of speech by the locality
and by more or less frequent use, and, secondly, those
exerted on the order of the designations by the order
in which..obj.ec±s_^vere observed and, designated. Never
theless, in this also there is no chance or arbitrariness,
but strict law ; and in an organ of speech thus affected by
the conditions mentioned there necessarily arises, not
the one pure human language, but a deviation therefrom,
and, moreover, this particular deviation and no other.

If we give the name of people to men whose_organs of
speech -are influenced by the same external conditions,
who live together, and who develop their language in
continuous communication with each other, then we
must say : The language of this people is necessarily
just what it is, and in reality this people does not express
its knowledge, but its knowledge expresses itself out of
the mouth of the people.

GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 57

48. Despite all the changes brought about, as the
language progresses, by the circumstances mentioned
above, this conformity with law remains uninterrupted ;
and indeed, for all who remain in uninterrupted com
munication, and who all hear in due course whatever
any individual for the first time expresses, there is one
and the same conformity with law. After thousands of
years, and after all the changes undergone in that time
by the external manifestation of the language of this
people, it ever remains nature's one, same, living power
of speech, which in the beginning necessarily arose in the
way it did, which has flowed down through all conditions
without interruption, and in each necessarily became what
it did become, which in the end necessarily was what it
now is, and in time to come necessarily will be what it
then will be. The pure human language, in conjunction^
first with the speech-organ of the people when its first
sound was uttered, and the product of these, in conjunc
tion further with all the developments which this first
sound in the given circumstances necessarily acquired-
all this together gives as its final result the present language
of the people. For that reason, too, the language always
remains the same language. Even though, after some
centuries have passed7The descendants do not understand
the language of their ancestors, because for them the
transitions have been lost, nevertheless there is from the
beginning a continuous transition without a leap, a
transition^ always imperceptible at the time, and only
made perceptible when further transitions occur and the
whole process appears as a leap forward. There has never
been a time when contemporaries ceased to understand
each other, for their eternal go-between and interpreter
always was, and has continued to be, the common power
of nature speaking through them all. Such is the con-

58 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

dition of language, considered as the designation of objects
directly perceived by the senses ; and in the beginning
all human language is this. When the people raises
itself from this stage of sensuous perception to a grasp
of the supersensuous, then, if this supersensuous is to
be repeated at will and kept from being confused with the
sensuous by the first individual, and if it is to be com
municated to others for their convenience and guidance,
the only way at first to keep firm hold of it will be to
designate a Self as the instrument of a supersensuous
world and to distinguish it precisely from the same Self as
the instrument of the sensuous world — to contrast a soul,
a mind, etc., with a physical body. As all the various
objects of this supersensuous world appear only in and
exist for that supersensuous instrument, the only possible
way of designating them in language would be to say
that their special relation to their instrument is similar
to the relation of such-and-such particular sensuous
objects to the sensuous instrument, and in this relation
to compare a particular supersensuous thing with a
particular sensuous one, using this comparison to indicate
by language the place of the supersensuous thing in the
supersensuous instrument. In this sphere language has
no further power ; it gives a sensuous image of the
supersensuous thing, merely with the remark that it is
an image of that kind ; he who wishes to attain to the
thing itself must set his own mental instrument in motion
according to the rule given him by the image. Speaking
T generally, it is evident that this designation of the super-
sensuous by means^of^jensuous images must in every
-bertogcTitioned by the stage of development which

!the power of sensuo'us perception has reached in the
p.eople under -consideration. Hence, the origin and pro
gress of this designation by sensuous images will be very

GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 59

different in different languages and will depend on the
difference in the relation that has existed and continues
to exist between the sensuous and intellectual develop
ment of the people speaking a language.

49. We shall next illustrate this observation, clear
though it is in itself, by an example. Anything that arises,
according to the conception of the fundamental impulse
explained in the preceding address, directly in clear
perception and not in the first place in dim feeling—
anything of this kind, and it is always a supersensuous
object, is denoted by a Greek word which is frequently
used in the German language also ; it is called an Idea
[German, Idee\ ; and this word conveys exactly the same
sensuous image as the word Gesicbt in German, which
occurs in the following expressions in Luther's translation
of the Bible : Ye shall see visions \Gesicb te\9 ye shall
dream dreams. Idea or Vision, in its sensuous meaning,
would be something that could be perceived only by the
bodily eye and not by any other sense such as taste,
hearing, etc. ; it would be such a thing as a rainbow, or
the forms which pass before us in dreams. Idea or
Vision, in its supersensuous meaning, would denote,
first of all, in conformity with the sphere in which the
word is to be valid, something that cannot be perceived
by the body at all, but only by the mind ; and then,
something that cannot, as many other things can, be
perceived by the dim feeling of the mind, but only by the
eye of the mind, by clear perception. Further, even if
one were inclined to assume that for the Greeks the basis
of this sensuous designation was certainly the rainbow and
similar phenomena, one would have to admit that their
sensuous perception had already advanced to the stage
of noticing this difference between things, viz., that some
reveal themselves to all or several senses and others to

60 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

the eye alone, and that, besides, if the developed conception
had become clear to them, they would have had to desig
nate it not in this way but in some other. Also their
superior mental clearness would then be evident as
compared, say, with that of another people which was
not able to indicate the difference between the sensuous
and the supersensuous by an image taken from the
deliberate waking state, but had gone to dreams to find
an image for another world. It would at the same time
be plain that this difference was not based on the greater
or smaller strength of the sense for the supersensuous in
the two peoples, but solely on the difference between their
sensuous clearness at the time when they sought to desig
nate supersensuous things.

/ 50. Thus all designation of the supersensuous is con
ditioned by the extent and clearness of sensuous percep
tion in him who gives the designation. The image is
clear to him and expresses to him in an entirely com
prehensible way the relation of the thing conceived to
the' mental instrument, because this relation is explained
to him by another, direct, and living relation to his
sensuous instrument. The new designation which thus
arises, together with all the new clearness which sensuous
perception itself acquires by this extended use of the sign,
is now deposited in the language ; and the supersensuous
perception possible in the future is now designated in
accordance with its relation to the total supersensuous
and sensuous perception deposited in the whole language.
So it goes on without interruption, and so the immediate
clearness and comprehensibility of the images is never
broken off, but remains a continuous stream. More
over, since language is not an arbitrary means of com
munication, but breaks forth out of the life of under
standing as an immediate force of nature, a language

GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 61

continuously developed according to this law has also-
the' power oT immediately affecting and stimulating life.
Just as things immediately present influence man, so
must the words of such a language influence him who
understands them ; for they, too, are things, and not an
arbitrary contrivance. Such is the case first in the
sensuous world. Nor is it otherwise in the supersensuous ;
for, although in the latter the continuous process of observ
ing nature is interrupted by free contemplation and
reflection, and at this point God who is without image
appears, yet designation by language at once inserts the
Thing-without-image in the continuous connection of
things which have an image. So, in this respect also,
the continuous progress of language, which broke forth
in the beginning as a force of nature, remains uninter
rupted, and into the stream of designation no arbitrari
ness enters. For the same reason the supersensuous part
of a language thus continuously developed cannot lose
its power of stimulating life in him who but sets his
mental instrument in motion. The words of such a
language in all its parts are life and create life. Now if,
in respect of the development of the language for what
is supersensuous, we make the assumption that the people i
of this language have continued in unbroken communica- 1
tion, and that what oiTte has thought and expressed^ has j
before long come to the knowledge of all, then what has /
previously been said in general is valid for all who speak /
this language. ±o all who will but think the image'
deposited in the language is clear ; to all who really
think it is alive and stimulates their life.

51. Such is the case, I say, with a language which,
from the time the first sound broke forth among the same
people, has developed continuously out of the actual
common life of this people, and into which no element

62 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

has ever entered that did not express an observation
actually experienced by this people, and, moreover,
an observation standing in a connection of wide-spread
reciprocal influence with all the other observations of
the same people. It does not matter if ever so many
-.individuals of other race and other language are incorpora-
I ted with the people speaking this language"; provided
the former are not permitted to bring the sphere of their
observations up to the position from which the language
is thereafter to develop, they remain dumb in the com
munity and without influence on the language, until
the time comes when they themselves have entered into
the sphere of observation of the original people. Hence
I they do not form the language ; it is the language which
forms them.

- -»52. But the exact opposite of all that has so far been
( said takes place~when~!Tpeople gives up its own language
) and adopts a foreign one which is already highly developed
'• as regards the designation of supersensuous things. I
do not mean when it yields itself quite freely to the
influence of this foreign language and is quite content
to remain without a language until it has entered into
the circle of observation of this foreign language, but when
it forces its own circle of observation on the adopted
language, which, when it develops from the position in
which they found it, must thenceforward proceed in this
circle of observation. In respect of the sensuous part
of the language, such an event, indeed, is without con
sequences. For among every people the children must
in any case learn that part of the language just as if the
signs were arbitrary, and thus recapitulate in this matter
the whole previous linguistic development of the nation.
But in this sphere of the senses every sign can be made
quite clear by directly looking at or touching the thing

GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 6y

designated. At most, the result of this would be that
the first generation of a people which thus changed its
language would be compelled when adults to go back
to the years of childhood ; with their descendants,
however, and with subsequent generations, everything
would doubtless be in the old order again. On the other
hand, this change has consequences of the greatest impor
tance in respect of the supersensuous part of the language.
For the first possessors of the language this part was
formed in the way already described ; but, for those who
acquire the language later, the verbal image contains a
comparison with an observation of the senses, which
they have either passed over long ago without the accom
panying mental development, or else have not yet had,
and perhaps never can have. The most that they
can do in such a case is to let the verbal image and its^
mental significance explain each other ; in this way they
receive the flat and dead history of a foreign culture
but not in any way a culture of their own. They ger
symbols which for them are neither immediately clear
nor able to stimulate life, but which must seem to them
entirely as arbitrary as the sensuous part of the language.
For them this advent of history, and nothing but history,
as expositor, makes the language dead and closed in respect (A
of its whole sphere of imagery, and its continuous onward
flow is broken off. Although, beyond this sphere, they^
may again develop the language as a living language in
their own way and so far as this is possible from such a
starting-point, nevertheless that element remains a
dividing wall at which, without exception, language in its
original emergence from life as a force of nature and the
actual language's renewal of contact with life are broken.
Although such a language may be stirred on the surface
by the wind of life and thus present the appearance of

I

^4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

having a life of its own, nevertheless it has a dead element
deeper down, and by the entrance of the new circle of
observation and the breach with the old one it is cut off
from the living root.

53. We proceed to illustrate the foregoing by an
example, remarking incidentally that such a language,
at bottom dead and incomprehensible, very easily lends
itself to perversion and to misuse in glossing over every
kind of human corruption, and that this is not possible
in a language which has never died. I take as my example
the three notorious words, Humanity, Popularity, and
Liberality. When these words are used in speaking to
a German who has learnt no language but his own they
are to him nothing but a meaningless noise, which has
no relationship of sound to remind him of anything he
knows already and so takes him completely out of his
circle of observation and beyond any observation possible
to him. Now, if the unknown word nevertheless attracts
his attention by its foreign, distinguished, and euphonious
tone, and if he thinks that what sounds so lofty must
also have some lofty meaning, he must have this meaning
explained to him from the very beginning and as some
thing entirely new to him, and he can only accept this
explanation, blindly. So he becomes tacitly accus
tomed to acknowledge as really existing and valuable
something which, if left to himself, he would perhaps
never have found worth mentioning. Let no one
believe that the case is much different with the neo-Latin
peoples, who utter those words as if they were words
of their mother-tongue. Without a scholarly study of
antiquity and of its actual language they understand
the roots of those words just as little as the German
does. Now if, instead of the word Humanity [Human-
itdi], we had said to a German the word Menschlichkeit,

GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 65

which is its literal translation, he would have understood
us without further historical explanation, but he would
have said : " Well, to be a man [Mensch~\ and not a wild
beast is not very much after all." Now it may be that
no Roman would ever have said that ; but the German
would say it, because in his language manhood [Mensch-
heif\ has remained an idea of the senses only and has
never become a symbol of a supersensuous idea as it did
among the Romans. Our ancestors had taken note of
the separate human virtues and designated them symboli
cally in language perhaps long before it occurred to them
to combine them in a single concept as contrasted with
animal nature ; and that is no discredit to our ancestors
as compared with the Romans. Now anyone who, in
spite of this, wished to introduce that foreign and Roman
symbol artificially and, as it were, by a trick into the
language of the Germans, would obviously be lowering
their ethical standard in passing on to them as distinguished
and commendable something which may perhaps be so
in the foreign language, but which the German, in accord
ance with the ineradicable nature of his national power
of imagination, only regards as something already known
and indispensable. A closer examination might enable *
us to demonstrate that those Teutonic races which j
adopted the Latin language experienced, even in the |
beginning, similar degradations of their former ethical I
standard because of inappropriate foreign symbols ; \
but on this circumstance we do not now wish to lay too
great a stress.

Further, if in speaking to the German, instead of the
words Popularity \_Popularitat] and Liberality \Liber-
alitat], I should use the expressions, " striving for favour
with the great mob," and " not having the mind of a
slave," which is how they must be literally translated,

5

66 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

he would, to begin with, not even obtain a clear and vivid
sense-image such as was certainly obtained by a Roman of
old. The latter saw every day with his own eyes the
flexible politeness of an ambitious candidate to all and
sundry, and outbursts of the slave mind too ; and those
words vividly re-presented these things to him. Even
from the Roman of a later period these sights were
removed by the change in the form of government and
the introduction of Christianity ; and, besides, his own
language was beginning to a great extent to die away
in his own mouth. This was more especially due to
Christianity, which was alien to him, and which he
i could neither ward off nor thoroughly assimilate. How
'was impossible for this language, already half dead in its
own home, to be transmitted alive to a foreign people ?
How could it now be transmitted to us Germans ? More
over, with regard to the symbolic mental content of
both those expressions, there is in the word Popularity,
even at the very beginning, something base, which was
perverted in their mouths and became a virtue, owing to
the corruption of the nation and of its constitution.
The German never falls into this perversion, so long as
it is 'put before him in his own language. But when
Liberality is translated by saying that a man has not
the soul of a slave, or, to give it a modern rendering, has
not a lackey's way of thinking, he once more replies that
to say this also means very little.

Moreover, into these verbal images, which even in their

pure form among the Romans arose at a low stage of

ethical culture or designated something positively base,

there were stealthily introduced during the development

X)f the neo-Latin languages the idea of lack of seriousness

/ about social relations, the idea of self-abandonment, and

L the idea of heartless laxity. In order to bring these

GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 67

things into esteem among us, use was made of the respect
we have for antiquity and foreign countries to introduce
the same words into the German language. It was donex,
so quietly that no one was fully aware of what was actually \"
intended. The purpose and the result of all admixture
has ever been this : first of all to remove the hearer from
the immediate comprehensibility and definiteness which
are the inherent qualities of every primitive language ;
then, when he has been prepared to accept such words
in blind faith, to supply him with the explanation that
he needs ; and, finally, in this explanation to mix vice
and virtue together in such a way that it is no easy matter
to separate them again. Now, if the true meaning of"
those three foreignjwords, provided they have a meaning,
had been expressed to the German in his own words
and within his own circle of verbal images, in this way :
Menschenfreundlicbkeii (friendliness to man), Leutselig-
keit (condescension or affability), and Edelmut (noble-
mindedness), he would have understood us ; but the base
associations we have mentioned could never have been
slipped into those designations. Within the range of
German speech such a wrapping-up in incomprehen
sibility and darkness arises either from clumsiness or
evil design ; it is to be avoided, and the means always
ready to hand is to translate into right and true German.
But in the neo-Latin languages this incomprehensibility is
of their very nature and origin, and there is no means of
avoiding it, for they do not possess any living language |j
by which they might examine the dead one ; indeed, ||
when one looks at the matter closely, they are entirely
without a mother-tongue.

54. This single example will serve to demonstrate
what could with ease be followed up throughout the whole
range of the language and found present everywhere.

68 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

It is intended to explain to you as clearly as is here
possible what has so far been said. We are speaking
of the supersensuous part of the language, and not
immediately or directly of the sensuous part. This super-
sensuous part, in a language that has always remained
• alive, is expressed by symbols of sense, comprehending
lat every step in complete unity the sum total of the
teensuous and mental life of the nation deposited in the
language, for the purpose of designating an idea that like
wise is not arbitrary, but necessarily proceeds from the
jwhole previous life of the nation. From the idea and
its designation a keen eye, looking back, couTcThot fail
to reconstruct the whole history of the nation's culture.
But in a dead language this supersensuous part, which,
while the language was still alive, was what we have
described, becomes with the death of the language a
tattered collection of arbitrary and totally inexplicable
symbols for ideas that are just as arbitrary ; and with
both idea and symbol there is nothing else to be done
but just to learn them.

55. With this our immediate task is performed, which
was to find the characteristic that differentiates the
German from the other peoples of Teutonic descent.
The difference arose at the moment of the separation
of the common stock and consists in this, that the
^German speaks a language which has been alive ever
since it first issued from the force of nature, whereas
the other Teutonic races speak a language which has
movement on the surface only but is dead at the root.
To this circumstance alone, to life on the one hand and
_death on the other, we assign the difference ; but we
~are not in any way taking up the further question of
the intrinsic value of the German language. Between
I life and death there is no comparison ; the foimer has

GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 69

infinitely more value than the latter. All direct
parisons between German and neo-Latin languages are
therefore null and void, and are obliged to discuss things
which are not worth discussing. If the intrinsic value of
the German language is to be discussed, at the very least
a language of equal rank, a language equally primitive,
as, for example, Greek, must enter the lists ; but such a
comparison is far beyond our present purpose.

56. What an immeasurable influence on the whole _
human development of a people the character of its lan
guage may have — its language, which accompanies the in
dividual into the most secret depths of his mind in thought
and will and either hinders him or gives him wings, which]
unites within its domain the whole mass of men who speak
it into one single and common understanding, which is
the true point of meeting and mingling for the world
of the senses and the world of spirits, and fuses the ends
of both in each other in such a fashion that it is impossible
to tell to which of the two it belongs itself — how different
the results of this influence may prove to be where the
relation is as life to death,* all this in general is easily
perceived. In the first place, the German has a means
of investigating his living language more thoroughly ,
by comparing it with the closed Latin language, which
differs very widely from his own in the development of
verbal images ; on the other hand, he has a means of
understanding Latin more clearly in the same way. This
is not possible to a member of the neo-Latin peoples,
who fundamentally remains a captive in the sphere of
one and the same language. Then the German, in learn
ing the original Latin, at the same time acquires to a
certain extent the derived languages also ; and if he should
learn the former more thoroughly than a foreigner does,
which for the reason given the German will very likely

70 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

be able to do, he at the same time learns to understand
this foreigner's own language far more thoroughly and
to possess it far more intimately than does the foreigner
TTiimself who speaks it. Hence the German, if only he
j makes use of all his advantages, can always be^uperior
^ to the foreigner and understand him fully, even better
than the foreigner understands himself, and can translate
the foreigner to the iullest extent. On the other hand,
the foreigner can never understand the true German
without a thorough and extremely laborious study of
the German language, and there is no doubt that he will
leave what is genuinely German untranslated. The things
in these languages which can only be learnt from the
foreigner himself are mostly new fashions of speech
due to boredom and caprice, and one is very modest when
one consents to receive instruction of this kind. In most
cases one would be able, instead, to show foreigners how
they ought to speak according to the primitive language
and its law of change, and that the new fashion is worth-
ess and offends against ancient and traditional good usage.
57. In addition to the special consequence just men
tioned, the whole wealth of consequences we spoke of
comes about of itself.

It is, however, our intention to treat these consequences
as a whole, fundamentally and comprehensively, from
the point of view of the bond that unites them, in order
to give in this way a thorough description of the German
in contrast to the other Teutonic races. For the present
I briefly indicate these consequences thus :—

(1) Where the people has a living language, mental
t culture influences life ; where the contrary is the case,
' mental culture and life go their way independently of
, each other.

(2) For the same reason, a people of the former kind

GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 71

is really and truly in earnest about all mental culture
and wishes it to influence life ; whereas a people of the
latter kind looks upon mental culture rather as an ingeni
ous game and has no wish to make it anything more.

(3) From No. 2 it follows that the former has honest
diligence and earnestness in all things, and takes pains ;
whereas the latter is easy-going and guided by its happy
nature.

(4) From all this together it follows that in a nation
of the former kind the mass of the people is capable of
education, and the educators of such a nation test their
discoveries on the people and wish to influence it ;
whereas in a nation of the latter kind the educated classes
separate themselves from the people and regard it as
nothing more than a blind instrument of their plans/
The further discussion of the characteristics indicated I
reserve for the next address.

FIFTH ADDRESS

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE THAT HAS
BEEN INDICATED

58. WITH the object of describing the characteristic
quality of the Germans we have pointed out the funda
mental difference between them and the other peoples
of Teutonic descent, viz., that the former have remained
in the uninterrupted flow of a primitive language which
develops itself continuously out of real life, whereas the
latter adopted a language which was foreign to them and
which under their influence has been killed. At the end
of the previous address we indicated other manifestations
among these peoples, who differ from each other in the
way we have shown. To-day we shall deal more fully
with these manifestations, which are a necessary conse
quence of that fundamental difference, and establish them
more firmly on their common foundation.

An investigation which endeavours to be thorough can
rise too high to be involved in many disputes or to arouse
much jealousy. Our method of investigation in the
present instance will be the same as it was in the one to
which this is a sequel. We shall take the fundamental
difference that has been indicated, and deduce its con
sequences step by step ; our sole concern will be to see
that this deduction is correct. Whether the various
manifestations which, according to this deduction, ought

72

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 735

to exist, are actually met with in experience is a question
which I shall leave entirely to you and to any observer fore I
decision. As regards the German especially, I shali-
indeed prove at the proper time that he has in fact revealehe
himself to be what our deduction shows he was bouity,
to be. But, as regards Teutons in other countries, are
shall have no objection if one of them, with a real undoed
standing of the true nature of our present discussio, is
is subsequently successful in proving that his compatrioth
have been just what the Germans have been, and is ablchj
to show that they are entirely free from the opposite <V
characteristics. In general, our description even Jr*
these opposite characteristics will not dwell on what is
harsh and disadvantageous, for such a method makes
victory more easy than honourable, but will merely
point out what are the inevitable consequences, and will
do this with as much consideration as is consistent with
the truth.

59. The first consequence of that fundamental differ
ence, I said, was this : among the people with a living
language mental culture influences life, whereas among a
people of the opposite kind mental culture and life go
their separate ways. It will be useful first of all to explain
more fully the meaning of this statement. First of all,
when we speak here of life and of the influence exerted
upon it by mental culture, we must be understood to mean
primitive life in its flow from the source of all spiritual
life, from God, the development of human relationships
according to their archetype, and, therefore, the creation
of a new life such as has never hitherto existed. We are
by no means discussing the mere preservation from decay
of those relationships in their present stage. StLl less
have we in mind the assistance of individual members
who have fallen behind in the general development.

,

+ ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

Next, when we speak of mental culture we are to under-
'tand thereby, first of all, philosophy, for it is philosophy
rhich scientifically comprehends the eternal archetype
'. all spiritual life. We must designate it by the foreign
me, as the Germans have shown themselves unwilling
adopt the German name l that was recently suggested,
r this science, and for all science based upon it, the claim
low made that it influences the life of a people who have
living language. But, in apparent contrast to this
ssertion, it has often been said, and by some among
mrselves, that philosophy, science, the fine arts, etc.,
^c ends in themselves and not handmaids of life, and that
it is degrading them to esteem them according to their
utility in the service of life. Here we must define these
expressions more closely and guard against any misinter
pretation. They are true in the following double but
limited sense ; first, that it is not the duty of science or
art, as some have thought, to be useful at what may be
called a lower stage of life, e.g., temporal or sensuous life,
or for everyday edification ; then, that an individual,
in consequence of his personal seclusion from a spiritual
world regarded as a whole, may be entirely absorbed in
these special branches of the universal divine life without
needing a stimulus from outside them, and may find in
them complete satisfaction. But they are in no wise
true in the strict sense, for it is just as impossible that
there should be more than one end in itself as that there
should be more than one Absolute. Thejsole end in
itself, apart from which there can be no other, is spiritual
life. Now this expresses itself in part and appears as an
eternal stream, with itself as source — that is, as eternal
activity. This activity . eternally receives its pattern
from science, and its ability to form itself according to
1 [Wissenschaftslehre, i.e. Theory of science.]

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 75

this pattern from art, and in so far it might appear that }
science and art exist as means to an end, which is active )
life. But in"this form of activity life itself is never com
pleted and made absolute as a unity, but goes on into the
infinite. Now, if life is to exist as such an absolute unity,
it must be in another form. This form is that of pure
thought, which produces the religious insight described
in the third address, a form which, as absolute unity, is
utterly incompatible with infinity of action and which
can never be completely expressed in action. Hence both
of them, thought as well as activity, are forms incompat- V
ible only in the world of appearance, but in the work
beyond appearance they are both equally one and the
same absolute life. One cannot say that thought exists
and exists as it does, for the sake of activity, or vice versa ;
one must say that both must simply exist, since life must
be a completed whole in the phenomenal world, just as
it is in the /noumenal. Within this sphere, therefore,
and according to this view, it is not nearly enough to say
that science exerts an influence on life ; science itself
is life perpetual in itself. Or, to connect this with a
well-known expression, one sometimes hears the question
put : What is the use of all knowledge, if one does not
act in accordance with it ? This remark implies that
knowledge is regarded as a means to action, and the
latter as the real end. One could put the question
the other way round and ask : How can we possibly
act well without knowing what the Good is ? This
way of expressing it would regard knowledge as con
ditioning action. But both expressions are one-sided,
and the truth is that both, knowledge as well as '
action, are in the same way inseparable elements of I
rational life.

60. But science is life perpetual in itself, as we have

76 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

just expressed it, only when thought is the real mind and
disposition of the one who thinks, in such a way that,
without special effort and even without being clearly
conscious of it, he views and judges everything else that
he thinks, views, and judges according to that fundamental
thought, and, if the latter exerts an influence on action,
just as inevitably acts according to it. But thought is
in no wise life and disposition when it is thought only as
the thought of a life that is strange or foreign, however
clearly and completely it may be comprehended as a
thought that has a mere possibility of existence in this
way, and however clearly one might think, as perhaps
bomeone could think, in this fashion. In this latter case,
between our thinking at second-hand and our real think
ing there lies a wide field of chance and freedom — a
freedom that we feel no desire to use ; and so this think
ing at second-hand remains apart from us ; it is a merely
possible thinking, one made free from us and always freely
to be repeated. In the former case thought has by itself
directly taken hold of our self, and made it into itself ;
and through this reality of thought for us, arising in this
way, we obtain insight into its necessity. As we have just
said, no freedom can forcibly bring about the latter con
sequence, which must be produced of itself, and thought
itself must take hold of us and form us according to itself.
61. Now this living effectiveness of thought is very
much furthered and, indeed, where the thinking is of the
proper depth and strength, even made inevitable, by think
ing and designating in a living language. The symbol
in such a language is itself directly living and sensuous ;
it re-presents all real life and so takes hold of and exerts
an influence on life. To the possessor of such a language
spirit speaks directly and reveals itself as man does to man.
But the symbol of a dead language does not stimulate

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 77

anything directly ; in order to enter the living stream of
such a language one must first recapitulate knowledge
acquired by the study of history from a world that has
died, and transport one's self into an alien mode of
thought. How superabundant must be the impulse of
one's own thinking, if it does not grow weary in this long,<
and wide field of history and in the end modestly content
itself with the region of history. If the thinking of the
possessor of a living language does not become alive, he
may rightly be accused of not having thought at all and
of having merely indulged in reverie. The possessor of
a dead language, however, cannot in a similar case be
similarly accused without hesitation ; it may be that
he has " thought " after his own fashion, i.e., carefully
developed the conceptions deposited in his language.
Only he has not done that which, if he succeeded in
doing it, would be accounted a miracle.

Incidentally it is evident that the impulse to thinking,
in the case of a people with a dead language, will be most
powerful and produce the greatest apparent results in
the beginning, when the language has not yet become
clear enough to everyone. It is also evident that, as
soon as the language becomes clearer and more definite,
this impulse to thinking will tend more and more to die
away in the chains of the language. It is further evident
that in the end the philosophy of a people of this kind
will consciously resign itself to the fact that it is only an
explanation of the dictionary, or, as un-German spirits/
among us have expressed it in a more high-sounding (
fashion, a jnetacritic of language ; and, finally, that such
a people will acknowledge some mediocre didactic poem
in comedy form on the subject of hypocrisy to be its
greatest philosophical work.1

1 [Fichte seems to refer here to Moliere's T artujfe .~\

78 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

62. In this way, I say, spiritual culture — and here
especially thinking in a primitive language is meant—
does not exert an influence on life ; it is itself the life
of him who thinks in this fashion. Nevertheless it
necessarily strives, from the life that thinks in this way,
to influence other life outside it, and so to influence the
life of all about it and to form this life in accordance with

.itself. For, just because that kind of thinking is life, it
lis felt by its possessor with inward pleasure in its vitalizing,
(transfiguring, and liberating power. But everyone to
whose inmost being happiness has been revealed is bound
to wish that everyone else may experience the same bliss ;
he is thus driven, and must work, to the end that the
stream from 4which he has drawn his own well-being may
spread itself over others too. It is different with him who
has merely apprehended the possibility of second-hand
thinking. Just as its substance yields him neither weal nor
woe, but merely occupies his leisure agreeably and enter
tainingly, so it is impossible for him to believe that it can
bring weal or woe to anyone else. In the end it is to
him a matter of indifference on what subject anyone
exercises his ingenuity or with what he occupies his
hours of leisure.

63. Of the means of introducing into the lives of all
the thought that has begun in the life of the individual,
the highest and best is £oe£ry ; hence this is the second
main branch of the spiritual culture of a people. The
thinker designates his thought in language, and this, as
we have said above, cannot be done except by images
of sense and, moreover, by an act of creation extending
beyond the previous range of sensuous imagery. In
doing this the thinker is himself a poet ; if he is not a
poet, language will fail him when his first thought comes,
and, when he attempts the second, thought itself will

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 79

depart from him. An extension and amplification of
the language's range of sensuous imagery having thus
been begun by the thinker, to send it in flood through
the whole field of sensuous images, so that every image
may receive its appropriate share of the new spiritual
ennoblement and so that the whole of life, down to its
deepest depths of sense, may appear steeped in the new
ray of light, may be well-pleasing, and may unwittingly
give the illusion of ennobling itself — to do this is the
work of true poetry. Only a living language can have
such poetry, for only in such a language can the range of
sensuous imagery be extended by creative thought, and
only in it does what has already been created remain
alive and open to the influence of kindred life. Such a
language has within itself the power of infinite poetry,
ever refreshing and renewing its youth, for every stirring
of living thought in it opens up a new vein of poetic
enthusiasm. To such a language, therefore, poetry is
the highest and best means of flooding the life of all with
the spiritual culture that has been attained. It is quite
impossible for a dead language to have poetry in this
higher sense, for none of the conditions necessary to
poetry exist in it. Such a language can have, how
ever, though only for a limited period, a substitute
for poetry in the following way. The_qutpourings of
the art of poetry in the original language will attract
attention. The new people, indeed, cannot go on
making poetry in the path that has been begun, for this
is foreign to its life, but it can introduce its own life and
its new circumstances into the sphere of sensuous imagery
and poetry in which the preceding age expressed its own
life ; it can, for example, dress up its knights as heroes,
and vice versa, and make the ancient gods exchange
raiment with the new ones. It is precisely this placing

8o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

of unfamiliar vesture upon the commonplace that gives
it a charm akin to that produced by idealization, and the
result will be quite pleasing figures. But the range of
sensuous and poetical imagery in the original language
on the one hand, and the new conditions of life on the
other, are finite and limited quantities. At some point
their mutual penetration is completed ; and when that
point is reached the people celebrates its golden age and
the source of its poetry runs dry. Somewhere or other
there must be a highest point in the adaptation of fixed
words to fixed ideas, and of fixed imagery to fixed con
ditions of life. When this point has been reached this
people must do one of two things. It can either repeat
its most successful masterpieces in a different form, so
that they look as if they were something new, although
they are in fact nothing but the old familiar things.
Or else, if it is determined to achieve something entirely
new, it can seek refuge in the unbecoming and the
unseemly. In this case their poetic art will mix together
the ugly and the beautiful and have recourse to carica
ture and humour, while their prose will be compelled to
confuse ideas and to jumble virtue and vice together.
This they must do if they seek new forms of expression.

64. When mental culture and life thus go their own
separate ways in a nation, the natural consequence is
that those classes who have no access to mental culture,
and who do not even receive the results of it as they
would in a living nation, are placed at a disadvantage
as compared with the educated classes and are regarded,
so to speak, as a different species of humanity, unequal
to them in mental power from the beginning and by
the mere fact of birth. Another consequence is that
the educated classes have no truly loving sympathy with
them and are not impelled to give them thorough aid,

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 81

for they believe that their original inequality makes
them quite incapable of being aided. It follows also that
the educated classes are tempted rather to make use of
them as they are and to let them be so used. Although
even this consequence of the death of the language can
be mitigated in the first years of the new nation by a
humanitarian religion and by the lack of special skill
among the higher classes, yet, as time goes on, this
despising of the people will become more and more
unconcealed and cruel. That is why the educated
classes assume superiority and give themselves airs ; and
there is in addition a special reason closely connected
with it which, as it has had a very extensive influence
even on the Germans, must be mentioned here. It
arises from the fact that in the beginning the Romans
called themselves barbarians and their own language
barbarous, as contrasted with the Greeks. In this they
very ingenuously repeated what the Greeks had said
about them. Afterwards the Romans handed on the
description they had taken upon themselves, and found
among the Teutons the same unquestioning simplicity
as they themselves had shown towards the Greeks.
The Teutons believed that the only possible way to get
rid of barbarism was to become Romans. The immi
grants to what was formerly Roman soil became as Roman
as they possibly could. But in their imagination the
term " barbarous " soon acquired the secondary meaning
of " common, plebeian, and loutish," and in this way
" Roman," on the contrary, became synonymous with
" distinguished." This way of looking at it affected
the Teutonic languages in general and in particular ;
in general, since, when measures were taken deliberately
and consciously to mould the language, they were directed

towards throwing out the Teutonic roots and forming

6

82 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION .

the words fromLatin roots, and thus creating the Romance
language as the language of the court and of the educated
classes. But the particular result is that, whenever two
words have the same meaning, the one from a Teutonic
root almost without exception denotes what is base and
ignoble, and the one from the Latin root what is nobler
and more distinguished.

65. This endemic disease of the whole Teutonic race,
as it might be called, attacks the German in the mother-
country too, if he is not armed against it by a high
earnestness. Even in our ears it is easy for Latin to sound
distinguished, even to our eyes Roman customs appear
nobler and everything German on the contrary vulgar ;
and as we were not so fortunate as to acquire all this
at first-hand, we take much pleasure in receiving it at
second-hand through the medium of the neo-Latin
nations.1 So long as we are German we appear to our-

1 [Fichte adds this note here : In our opinion the decision as to the
greater or less euphony of a language should not be based upon the direct
impression, which depends on so many matters of chance. Even a judg
ment of this kind should be founded on definite principles. The merit of a
language in this respect should undoubtedly be, first of all, that it exhausts
and comprehensively presents the possibilities of the human organs of
speech, and, secondly, that it combines the separate sounds in a natural and
convenient unity. Hence it follows that nations who only half develop
their organs of speech, and that in a one-sided fashion, who avoid certain
soundsor combinations under the pretext of difficulty or cacophony, and who
esteem euphonious only what they are accustomed to hear and can them
selves pronounce — such nations have no say in an investigation of this kind.

This is not the place to deliver judgment according to those higher
principles on the German language in this respect. Latin itself, the
parent language, is pronounced by each neo-European nation in its own
way, and it would not be easy to restore its true pronunciation. There
remains, therefore, only this question, whether the German language
when compared with neo-Latin languages sounds so bad, hard, and harsh
as some are inclined to think.

Until this question is thoroughly decided, we may meanwhile at least
explain how it happens that it does seem so to foreigners, and to Germans
too, even when they are unprejudiced and free from preferences or hate.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 83

selves men like any others ; when half or more than half
our vocabulary is non-German, and when we adopt
conspicuous customs and wear conspicuous clothes which
seem to come from foreign parts, then we fancy ourselves
distinguished. But the summit of our triumph is reached
when we are no longer taken for Germans, but actually for
Spaniards or Englishmen, whichever of the two happens to
be the more fashionable at the moment. We are right.
Naturalness on the German side, arbitrariness and
artificiality on the foreign side, are the fundamental
differences. If we keep to the former we are just like all
our fellow-Germans, who understand us and accept
us as their equals ; only when we seek refuge in the
latter do we become incomprehensible to our fellows,
who take us to be of a different nature. This unnatural-
ness comes of itself into the life of foreign countries,

because their life, deviated from nature originally ....and \

in a matter _of__the_first importance. But we Germans '
must first seek it out and accustom ourselves to the belief
that -something is beautiful, proper, and convenient,
which does not naturally appear so to us. The main
reason for all this in the case of the German is his belief
in the greater distinction of romanized countries, together
with his craving to be just as distinguished and arti
ficially to create in Germany too that gulf between the

A people as yet uncultivated, with a very lively power of imagination, and at
the same time childlike in mind and free from national vanity (the Teutons
seem to have had all these qualities) is attracted by what is far away, and
likes to make remote countries and distant islands the habitation for the
objects of its desires and the glories of which it dreams. Such a people
develops a sense of romance (the word explains itself and no more suitable
one could be invented). Sounds and tones from those regions touch this
sense and awaken its whole world of wonders ; hence they are pleasing.

This may be the reason why our countrymen who emigrated gave up their
own language for a foreign one so easily, and also why we, their kindred
so very far removed, find even now such wondrous pleasure in these tones.]

84 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

r upper classes and the people, which came about naturally
/ in foreign countries. I shall content myself with having
indicated the main source of this love of foreign ways
which is to be found among Germans ; on another occa
sion I shall show how widespread its effects have been,
and how all the evils which have now brought us to ruin
are of foreign origin. Of course it was only when united
with German earnestness and influence on life that such
evils were bound to bring destruction in their train.

66. In addition to these two manifestations resulting
* from the fundamental difference — firstly, that mental
/ culture either does or does not influence life, and, secondly,
that between the educated classes and the people a dividing
wall either does or does not exist — I cited the following
manifestation, that the people with a living language
" will possess diligence and earnestness and take pains in
all things, whereas the people with a dead language will
rather look upon mental activity as an ingenious game,
and will be easy-going and guided by its happy nature.
This circumstance is a natural result of what has been
said above. Among the people with a living language
investigation proceeds from a vital need, which is thereby
to be satisfied ; hence, investigation receives all the com
pelling impulses which life has in itself. But among the
people with a dead language investigation seeks nothing
more than to pass away the time in a manner that is
pleasant and in keeping with the sense of the beautiful,
and it has attained its object completely when it has done
this. With foreigners the latter course is almost inevitable,
but when a German boasts about his genius and his happy
nature he displays a love of foreign ways which is unworthy
of him and which, like every imitation of foreign ways,
' arise^-frsm_j:he craving- te-~ be- distinguished. It is true
that nothing excellent will be produced in any nation

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 85

in the world without a primitive impulse in man which,
as something supersensuous, is rightly called Genius, to
give it the foreign name. But this impulse in itself only
stimulates the power of imagination, and brings forth in
it figures that hover above the ground but are never
completely defined. To bring these down completed
to the ground of actual life and to fix them firmly thereinJ
this requires thought, diligent, deliberate, and in accord-/
ance with a definite principle. Genius delivers tG
diligence the stuff to be worked upon, and the latter with
out the former would have to work upon either what had
been worked upon already or else upon nothing at all.
But diligence brings this stuff, which without it would
remain an empty game, into life ; and so it is only when
united that the two can achieve anything ; divided they can
do nothing. Moreover, in a people with a dead language
no truly creative genius can express itself, because they
lack the primitive power of designation ; they can only
develop what has already been begun and convey it into
the whole existing and completed system of designation.

67. When we consider the question of taking greater j
pains, it is natural that this can be done by the people I
with the living language. A living language can stand 1
on a higher level of culture in comparison with another,
but it can never in itself attain that perfection of develop
ment which a dead language quite easily attains. In
the latter the connotation of words is fixed, and the
possibilities of suitable combinations will also gradually
become exhausted. Hence, he who wishes to speak this
language must speak it just as it is ; but, after he has once
learnt to do this, the language speaks itself in his mouth
and thinks and imagines for him. But in a living lan
guage, if _only life in it is really liv-ed^. the words and their
meanings increase and change continually, and for that

86 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

very reason new combinations become possible ; and the
language, which never is, but eternally is becoming, does
not speak itself, but he wrio wisHes to Use IF must speak
it himself in his own fashion and creatively for his own
needs. The latter undoubtedly demands far more
^diligence and practice than the former. Similarly, the
investigations of a people with a living language go down,
as we have already said, to the root where ideas stream
forth from spiritual nature itself ; whereas the investiga
tions of a people with a dead language only seek to pene
trate a foreign idea and to make themselves comprehen
sible. Hence, the investigations of the latter are in fact
only historical and expository, but those of the former
are truly philosophical. It is quite plain, too, that
an investigation of the latter kind may be completed
sooner and more easily than one of the former.

So we may say that genius in foreign lands will strew
with flowers the well-trodden military roads of antiquity,
and weave a becoming robe for that wisdom of life which
it will easily take for philosophy. The German spirit,
on the other hand, will open up new shafts and bring
the light of day into their abysses, and hurl up rocky
masses of thoughts, out of which ages to come will build
their dwellings. The foreign genius will be a delightful
sylph, which hovers in graceful flight above the flowers
that have sprung of themselves from its soil, settles on
them without causing them to bend, and drinks up their
refreshing dew. Or we may call it a bee, which with
busy art gathers the honey from the same flowers and
deposits it with charming tidiness in cells of regular
construction. B4^-4h£^Gerrnan spirit is an eagle, whose
mighty body thrusts itself orT high anxTsoars on strong
and well-practised wing into the empyrean, that it may
rise nearer to the sun whereon it delights to gaze.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 87

68. Now let us sum up in one main point of view all
that has hitherto been said. In general, when we con
sider the history of civilization in a race of men which
is split up in history into an age of antiquity and a new
world, we shall find on the whole that the function of
these two main branches in the original development of
this new world is as follows. That part of the vigorous
nation which has gone abroad and adopted the language
of antiquity thereby acquires a much closer relation
ship to antiquity. At the beginning it will be far easier
for this part of the nation to grasp the language of anti
quity in its first and unchanged form, to penetrate the
memorials of its culture, and to bring into them enough
fresh life to enable them to be adapted to the new life
that has arisen. In short, it is from them that the study
of classical antiquity has taken its way over modern
Europe. In its enthusiasm for the unsolved problems of
antiquity it will continue to work at them, but, of course,
only as one works at a problem that has been set, not by
the needs of life, but by mere curiosity. It will take them
lightly and not whole-heartedly, grasping them merely
with the power of imagination, and solely in this medium
giving them, as it were, an airy body. The very wealth
of material bequeathed by antiquity, and the ease with
which the work can be carried on in this fashion, will
enable them to bring an abundance of such images into
the field of vision of the modern world. Now, when
these images of the ancient world in their new form
reach that part of the original stock which, by its reten
tion of the language, has remained in the stream of original
culture, they will arouse the attention of the people and
stimulate them to activity on their own part ; though,
perhaps, these images, if they had remained in the old
form, would have passed before them unheeded and

88 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

unperceived. But as soon as they have really grasped
them and not, as it were, merely passed them on from
hand to hand, they will grasp them as their nature
impels them to do, not merely as knowledge of a foreign
life, but as an element of their own life. So they will
not only derive them from the life of the new world,
but also bring them into it again, incarnating the hitherto
merely airy figures in solid bodies that will endure in
real life.

These figures, thus transformed in a way that would
never have been possible to foreign countries, the latter
now receive from them again. Through this channel
alone is a development of the human race possible on the
path of antiquity, a union of the two main portions, and
a regular progress of human evolution. In this new order
of things the mother-country will not actually invent
anything ; but, in the smallest as in the greatest matters,
it will always have to acknowledge that it has been
stimulated by some hint from abroad. The foreign
countries themselves were in their turn stimulated by
the ancients, but the mother-country will take earnestly,
and bring into life, what other countries have only super
ficially and hastily sketched out. As we have already
said, this is not the place to illustrate this relationship by
striking and far-reaching examples. This we reserve for
our next address.

69. In this way both parts of the joint nation remained
one, and only in this simultaneous separation and unity do
they form a graft on the stem of the culture of antiquity,
which otherwise would have been broken off by the new
age, and so humanity would have begun again from the
beginning. The two parts have these vocations laid
upon them, different at the starting-point but coming
together at the goal ; each part must recognize its own

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 89

vocation and that of the other, and in accordance there
with each part must make use of the other. It is especi
ally necessary for each part to consent to assist the other
and to leave its characteristic quality untouched, if good
progress is to be made in the general and complete culture
of the whole. The recognition of this ought to come
first from the mother-country, which has been endowed
in the first place with the sense of profundity. But if
ever foreign countries, in their blindness to this relation
ship, should be so far carried away by what appears on
the surface as to attempt to deprive their mother-country
of its independence and so to destroy and absorb it,
they would thereby, if their attempt succeeded, sever for
themselves the last vein connecting them with nature
and with life, and fall defenceless into spiritual death,
which indeed, apart from this, has been revealing itself
to be their true nature more and more clearly as time
has gone on. Then the hitherto continuous stream of
the development of our race would be in fact at an end ;
barbarism would be bound to begin again and to go on
without hope of deliverance, until we were all living in
caves again like wild beasts and, like them, devouring
one another. That this is really so and must inevitably
follow, only the German can see, of course, and only he
! shall see it. To the foreigner, who, since he knows no
; foreign culture, has unlimited scope to admire himself
j in his own, it must and it may always appear preposterous
blasphemy proceeding from ill-educated ignorance.

Non-German countries are the earth, from which
fruitful vapours detach themselves and arise to the clouds,
and by which even now the old gods condemned to
Tartarus keep in touch with the sphere of life. Th<l
mother-country is the eternal sky enveloping the earth]
the sky in which the light vapours are condensed to clouds

9o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

which, impregnated by the lightning flash of the Thunderer
from the other world, descend in the form of fertilizing
rain, uniting sky and earth and causing the gifts whose
home is in the sky to germinate in the lap of earth.
Do new Titans once more want to take heaven by storm ?
It will not be heaven for them, for they are earth-born,
and the very sight and influence of heaven will be taken
from them. Only their earth will remain to them, a cold,
gloomy, and barren habitation. But, says a Roman poet,
what could a Typhceus do, or the mighty Mimas, or
Porphyrion with his threats, or Enceladus, the rash
hurler of uprooted tree-trunks, if they flung themselves
against the resounding shield of Pallas ? It is this very
shield that will undoubtedly cover us too, if we under
stand how to betake ourselves to its protection.

SIXTH ADDRESS

GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS AS EXHIBITED IN HISTORY

70. IN our last address we stated what would be the
chief differences between a people that has developed in
its original language and a people that has adopted, a
foreign one. We said at the time that, so far as foreign
countries were concerned, we would leave it to each
observer's own judgment to decide whether those mani
festations had in fact occurred which, according to our
assertions, were bound to occur. But with regard to the
Germans we undertook to prove that they had in fact
turned out to be what, according to our assertions, a
people with a primitive language was bound to be.
To-day we proceed to the fulfilment of our promise ;
and we prove our assertions, first of all, by the latest
great and, in a certain sense, completed achievement of
the German people, an achievement of world-wide
importance— the reformation of the Church.

71. Christianity, which originated in Asia, and in the
days of its corruption became more Asiatic than ever,
preaching only silent resignation and blind faith, was
something strange and foreign even to the Romans.
They never really laid hold of and assimilated it, and
their nature was divided by it into two halves that did
not fit each other ; nevertheless, the foreign part was
joined on by means of their inherited and melancholy

91

92 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

superstition. In the immigrant Teutons this religion
found disciples who had no previous intellectual educa
tion to hinder its acceptance, but also no hereditary
superstition favourable to it. Hence, it was presented to
them as one of the things that formed part of the equip
ment of a Roman, which is what they wanted to become ;
but it had no special influence on their life. These
Christian educators would obviously not let their new
converts know any more than suited their purpose
about the ancient culture of Rome or its language, the
key to its culture ; and here, too, we have a reason for the
decay and death of the Latin language in their mouth.
When later the untouched and genuine works of the old
culture fell into the hands of these peoples, and when the
impulse to think and understand for themselves was
thereby stirred into action, then, partly because this
impulse was new and fresh to them, and partly because
they had no inherited terror of the gods to act as a
counterpoise, the contradiction between blind faith and
the strange things that in course of time had become its
objects was bound to strike them far more sharply than it
had struck the Romans themselves when Christianity first
came to them. The perception of an utter contradic
tion in what one has hitherto faithfully believed excites
laughter. ^Those who had solved the riddle laughed and
mocked ; and even the priests, who had also solved it,
laughed with the rest ; they could do so in safety, because
only very few people had access to the classical culture
which broke the spell. Here I refer especially to Italy,
the chief seat of neo-Latin culture at that time, the other
neo-Latin races being still very far behind Italy in every
respect.

They laughed at the deception, because there was no
earnestness in them to turn bitter. Their exclusive

GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 93

possession of rare knowledge strengthened them in their
position as a distinguished and educated class, and so they
were quite willing that the great multitude, for whom
they had no feeling, should remain under the sway of the
deception and thus be more subservient to their purposes.
This state of things — a people deceived, and their betters
making use of the deception and laughing at them — might
have continued ; and it would probably have continued
until the end of time, if there had been none but neo-
Latins in the modern world.

Here you have a clear proof of what I said about the
continuation of ancient culture by the new, and about
the share the neo-Latins are able to have in it. The
new light proceeded from the ancients and, falling
first upon the central point of neo-Latin culture, was
there developed into nothing more than an intellectual
view of things, without taking hold of life and shaping
it differently.

72. But it was impossible for the existing state of
things to continue once this light had fallen upon a soul
whose religion was truly earnest and concerned about
life, when this soul was surrounded by a people to whom
it could easily impart its more earnest view, and when this
people found leaders who cared about its urgent needs.
However low Christianity may fall, there always remains
in it an essential part which contains truth and which is
sure to stimulate life, if only it is real and independent
life. That part is the question : What shall we do to
be saved ? When this question fell on barren soil,
where either it remained undecided whether such a
thing as salvation was really possible, or else, even if that
was assumed, there was still no firm and decided will to
be saved — on such soil religion from the very beginning
did not affect life and will, but remained suspended in

94 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

the memory and the imagination like a faint and quivering
shadow. So all further enlightenment concerning the
condition of the existing religious ideas was similarly
bound to remain without influence on life. But when,
on the other hand, that question fell upon soil that by
nature was living, where there was an earnest belief that
salvation existed and a firm will to be saved, where the
means of salvation prescribed by the existing religion
h^d been employed to that intent with inward faith,
honesty, and earnestness, and where, moreover, this
very earnestness long kept from the light the quality of
the prescribed means of salvation — when, I say, the new
light fell at last upon such a soil as this, the inevitable
result was horror and loathing of this deception in the
matter of the soul's salvation, and an unrest impelling
them to secure salvation in another way. What appeared
to be a rushing towards eternal ruin could not be treated
as if it were a joke. Moreover, the individual who was
first possessed by this view of the matter could not possibly
be content with saving only his own soul, and remain
indifferent to the welfare of all other immortal souls ; for,
if he had, he would thereby have saved not even his
own soul. Such was the teaching of his more profound
religion. He was bound, on the contrary, to wrestle for
all mankind with the same anxiety that he felt for his >
own soul, so that the whole world might have its eyes
opened to the damnable delusion.

73. It was in this way that the light fell upon the soul
of the German man, Luther. Long before him very many
foreigners had seen the light and comprehended it more
clearly with the intellect. In refinement, in classical
culture, in learning, and in other things he was surpassed,
not only by foreigners, but even by many of his own nation.
He, however, was possessed by an all-powerful impulse.

GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 95

the anxiety about eternal salvation, and this became the
life of his life, made him always throw his life into the
scale, and gave him the power and the gifts which are
the admiration of posterity. Others during the Reforma
tion may have had earthly aims, but they would never
have been victorious had there not been at their head a
leader inspired by the eternal. That this man, who
;always saw that the salvation of all immortal souls was at
stake, fearlessly and in all earnestness went to meet all
the devils in hell, is natural and in no way a wonder.
Here we have a proof of German earnestness of soul. \!

It was in the nature of things, as we "have said, that
Luther should turn to all men with this question, which
concerns all men and which each man must deal with for
himself. First of all he turned to the whole of his own
nation. How, then, did his people respond to this pro
posal ? Did they remain in their dull placidity, chained to
the,, ground by the cares of the world, and going on un-
disfurbed in the accustomed path ? Or did this mighty
enthusiasm, such as is not manifested every day, merely
excitip them to laughter ? By no means ! They were
seized by the same concern for the salvation of their souls ;
like fire it spread among them ; and so their eyes, too,
were q.uickly opened to the fullness of light, and they were
quick Vo accept what was offered to them. Was this
enthusiasm merely a momentary elevation of the imagina
tion, una ble to hold its ground in daily life with its stern
struggles ajid dangers ? By no means ! They renounced
all, endure<4 all tortures, and fought in bloody and in
decisive wars^ solely that they might not again come under
the power of *the accursed Papacy, but that the light of
the gospel, whurh alone can save, might shine upon them
and upon their children's children. There were renewed
among them, late in time, all the miracles that Chris-

96 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

tianity showed forth among those who professed it when
it began. All the utterances of that period are filled with
this universal concern for salvation. Behold in this a

\~proof of the characteristic quality of the German jpeople.
By enthusiasm it can easily be raised to enthusiasm and
clearness of any kind whatsoever, and its enthusiasm

^endures for life and transforms life.

74. In earlier times and in *ther places reformers had
inspired masses of the people, and. gathered and formed
them into communities. Yet these communities found
no firm abiding-place on the foundation of the existing
constitution, because the princes and rulers of the people
did not come over to their side. At first no more favour
able destiny seemed to await Luther's Reformation.
The wise Elector, under whose eyes it began, seemed to
be wise rather in the foreign than in the German sense.
He did not appear to have any special grasp of the real
question at issue, nor to attach much importance to what
seemed to him a quarrel between two orders of monks ;
at the most he was concerned merely about the good
reputation of his newly-founded University. But he
had successors who, though far less wise than he:, were
seized by the same earnest care for their salvation as
lived in their peoples, and by this likeness were- fused
with them into one body for life or death, defeat or
victory.

Behold in this an illustration of the above-mentioned
characteristic of the Germans as a single body, and of
their constitution as established by nature. < The great
events of national or world importance h'.ave hitherto
been brought before the people by speakers who came
forward voluntarily, and the people hane taken up the
cause. Though their princes, from lo/ve of foreign ways
and the craving for brilliance and distinction, might at

GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 97

first separate themselves, as those did, from the nation
and abandon or betray it, they were afterwards easily
swept into unanimity with the nation and took pity on
their peoples. That the former has always been the case
we shall prove more clearly hereafter by further illustra
tions ; that the latter may always continue to be the
case we can only wish with fervent yearning.

75. One must confess that there was a darkness and
unclearness in the anxiety of that generation about the
salvation of souls, since it was a question, not merely of
changing the external mediator between God and man,
but of needing no external mediator at all and of finding
the bond of connection in one's self. Nevertheless, it
was perhaps necessary that the religious education of
mankind should go through this intermediate state.
Luther's own honest zeal gave him more than he sought,
and carried him far beyond his own dogmatic system.
Once he had successfully overcome the first inward con
flicts, produced by his conscientious scruples when he
boldly broke away from the whole existing faith, all his
utterances are full of jubilation and triumph about the
freedom won for the children of God, who assuredly
no longer sought for salvation outside themselves and
beyond the grave, but were themselves a manifestation
of the immediate feeling of salvation. In this he became
the pattern for all generations to come, and died for us all.
Behold in this also a characteristic of the German spirit.
If it but seeks, it finds more than it sought, for it comes
into the stream of living life, which flows on of itself and
carries the seeker on with it.

76. To the Papacy, when taken and judged according
to its own view of the matter, wrong was undoubtedly
done by the way in which it was taken by the Reformation.
Its utterances were for the most part picked at random

7

9§ ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

from the existing language ; they exaggerated in Asiatic
and rhetorical fashion and were intended to have what
ever validity they could ; they reckoned on more than
due deduction being made in any case, but were never
seriously measured, weighed, or intended. The Reforma
tion took them with German seriousness at their full
weight ; it was right in thinking that everything should
be taken thus, but wrong in thinking that the others had
actually so taken it, and in blaming them for anything
more than their natural superficiality and lack of thorough
ness. In general, we may say that this is what always
happens in every conflict of German seriousness with the
foreign spirit, whether the latter is found in foreign or
in German lands ; the foreign spirit is quite unable to
comprehend how anyone can wish to raise such a great
to-do about unimportant things like words and phrases.
Foreigners, when they hear it again from German mouths,
deny that they said what they did in fact say, and what
they go on saying and always will say. So they complain
of calumny, or pushing consistency too far, as they call
it, when one takes their utterances in their literal sense
and as seriously intended, and treats them as part of a
logical sequence of thought, which one traces back to
its principles and forward to its conclusions ; although
one is perhaps very far from attributing to them in person
a clear consciousness of what they say or any logical
consistency. In the demand that one must take every
thing as it is meant, but not go further and call in question
the right to have opinions and to express them — in that
demand the foreign spirit always betrays itself, however
deeply it may be concealed.

77. The seriousness with which the old system of
religious doctrine was now taken compelled this system
itself to be more serious than it had been hitherto,

GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 99

and to undertake a new examination, interpretation, and
consolidation of the old doctrine and practice for the
future. Let this, and the example that is to follow, be
to you an illustration of the way in which Germany has
always reacted on the rest of Europe. The general
result was that the old doctrine thus obtained, at any rate,
such innocuous efficacy as was possible to it, once it had
been resolved not to abandon it altogether. But in
particular, to those who supported it, it became an oppor
tunity for, and a challenge to, more thorough and consistent
reflection than had been given to it before. The doc
trine, thus reformed in Germany, spread into the neo-
Latin countries and there produced the same result, viz.,
a loftier enthusiasm ; but, as this phenomenon was tran
sitory, we shall say no more about it here. It is, how
ever, noteworthy that in none of the entirely neo-Latin
countries did the new doctrine obtain permanent recog
nition by the State, for it seems that German thoroughness
among the rulers and German good-nature among the
people were needed, if this doctrine was to be found
compatible and made compatible with the supreme
power.

78. In another respect, however, Germany exercised a
general and permanent influence on other countries —
though, indeed, not on the common people, but on the
educated classes — by its reformation of the Church.
By means of this influence Germany once more made
other countries its forerunners and its instigators to
new creations. Free and spontaneous thinking, or philo
sophy, had frequently been stimulated and practised in
the preceding centuries under the dominion of the old
doctrine ; not, however, to bring forth truth out of
itself, but solely to show that the doctrine of the Church
was true and in what way it was true. Among the

ioo ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

German Protestants, philosophy was at first given the
same task in regard to their doctrine, and with them it
became the handmaid of the gospel, just as with the
Schoolmen it had been the handmaid of the Church.
In foreign countries, which either had no gospel or else
had not apprehended it with pure German devotion and
depth of soul, this free-thinking, fanned into flame by the
brilliant triumph it had achieved, rose higher and more
easily, unfettered by a belief in the supersensuous. It
remained fettered, however, by a belief of the senses in
the natural understanding \Verstand~\ that develops
without mental or moral training. Far from discovering
in the reason [Fernunft\ the source of truth which rests
upon itself, the utterances of this raw understanding
were to this way of thinking exactly what the Church
was for the Schoolmen and the gospel for the first Protes
tant theologians. As to whether they were true, not the
slightest doubt was raised ; the only question was how
they could maintain this truth against hostile assertions.

But, as this way of thinking did not even enter the
domain of the reason, whose Opposition would have been
more important, it found no opponent except the exist
ing historical religion. This it easily disposed of by
applying to it the measure of understanding or common
sense, which was presupposed, and thereby proving to
its own satisfaction that this religion was in direct con
tradiction to the latter. Hence it came about that,
as soon as all this was made quite plain, the word " philo
sopher " became synonymous with " irreligious atheist "
in foreign countries, and both designations served as
equally honourable marks of distinction.

79. This attempt at complete emancipation from all
belief in external authority, which was the right thing
about these struggles in foreign countries, acted as a fresh

GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS i«i

stimulus to the Germans, from whom it had first pro
ceeded by means of the reformation of the Church. It
is true that second-rate and unoriginal minds among us
simply repeated this foreign doctrine — better the foreign
doctrine, it seems, than the doctrine of their fellow-
countrymen, though this was to be had just as easily ;
the reason being that they took the former to be more
distinguished — and these minds tried to convince them
selves about it, so far as that was possible. But where
the independent German spirit was astir, the sensuous
was not enough, and there arose the problem of dis
covering the supersensuous (which is, of course, not to be
believed in on external authority) in the reason itself, I
and thus of creating for the first time tru£__ghilosophy I
by makin£_free_thought the sourcejofjndependent truth,
as it should be. To that end Leibniz strove inTiis
conflict with that foreign philosophy ; and the end was
attained by the true founder of modern German philo
sophy,1 not without a confession of having been aroused
to it by the utterance of a foreigner, which had, however,
been taken more profoundly than it had been intended.
Since that time the problem has been completely solved
among us, and philosophy has been perfected. One must
be content for the present with stating this as a fact,
until an age comes which comprehends it. On this
condition, the result once more would be the creation
in the German mother-country, on the stimulus o^
antiquity which has come to it through neo-Latin lands,!
of a new age such as never existed before.

80. We, their contemporaries, have seen how the
inhabitants of a foreign country2 took up lightly, and

1 [Kant, who confessed to having been roused from his " dogmatic
slumber " by Hume.]

2 [The reference is to the French Revolution.]

102 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

with fervent daring, another problem of reason and philo
sophy for the modern world — the establishment of the
perfect State. But, shortly afterwards, they abandoned
this task so completely that they are compelled by their
present condition to condemn the very thought of the
problem as a crime, and they had to use every means to
delete, if possible, those efforts from the annals of their
history. The reason for this result is as clear as day ;
the State in accordance with reason cannot be built up
by artificial measures from whatever material may be
at hand ; on the contrary, the nation must first be trained

[< and educated up to it. Only the nation which has
first solved in actual practice the problem of educating

p perfect men will then solve also the problem of the

u perfect State.

Since our reformation of the Church, the last-men
tioned problem of education has more than once been
attempted by foreign countries in a spirited fashion,
but in accordance with their own philosophy ; and among
us a first result of their efforts has been to stimulate
some to imitation and exaggeration. To what point the
German spirit once more has finally brought this matter
in our days we shall relate in more detail at the proper
time.

81. In what has been said you have a clear conspectus
of the whole history of culture in the modern world,
and of the never-varying relationship of the different
parts of the modern world to the world of antiquity.
True religion, in the form of Christianity, was the germ of
the modern world ; and the task of the latter may be
feummed up as follows : to make this religion permeate
rthe previous culture of antiquity and thereby to spiritualize
land hallow it. The first step on this path was to rid
this religion of the external respect of form which robbed

GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 103

it of freedom, and to introduce into it also the free-
thinking of antiquity. Foreign countries provided the
stimulus to this step ; the German took the step. The
second step, which is really the continuation and com
pletion of the first, namely, to discover in our own selves
this religion, and with it all wisdom — this, too, was pre
pared by foreign countries and completed by the German.
The next step forward that we have to make in the plan \
of eternity is to educate the nation to perfect manhood. \
Without this, the philosophy that has been won will never
be widely comprehended, much less will it be generally
applicable in life. On the other hand, and in the same)
way, the art of education will never attain complete!
clearness in itself without philosophy. Hence, there is
an interaction between the two, and either without the
other is incomplete and unserviceable. If only because
the German has hitherto brought to completion all the
steps of culture and has been preserved in the modern
world for that special purpose, it will be his work, too, in
respect of education. But, when education has once been
set in order, the same will follow easily with the other
concerns of humanity.

82. This, then, is the actual relationship in which the
German nation has hitherto stood with regard to the
development of the human race in the modern age. We
have still to throw more light upon an observation,
which has already been made twice, as to the natural
course of development which events have taken with our
nation, viz., that in Germany all culture has proceeded'^
from the people. That the reformation of the Church
waTs ""first brought before the people, and that it succeeded
only because it became their affair, we have already seen.
But we have further to show that this single case was not
an exception ; it has, on the contrary, been the rule.

io4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

83* The Germans who remained in the motherland
had retained all the virtues of which their country had
formerly been the home — loyalty, uprightness, honour,
a"nd simplicity ; but of training to a higher and intellectual
life they had received no more than could be brought by
the Christianity of that period and its teachers to men
whose dwellings were scattered. This was but little :
hence, they were not so advanced as their racial kinsmen
who had emigrated. They were in fact good and honest,
it is true, but none the less semi-barbarians. There arose
among them, however, cities erected by members of
the people. In these cities every branch of culture
quickly developed into the fairest bloom. In them arose
civic constitutions and organizations which, though but
on a small scale, were none the less of high excellence ;
$nd, proceeding from them, a picture of order and a love
m it spread throughout the rest of the country. Their
extensive commerce helped to discover the world.
Their league was feared by kings. The monuments of
their architecture are standing at the present day and have
defied the ravages of centuries; before them posterity
stands in admiration and confesses its own impotence.

84. It is not my intention to compare these burghers
of the German imperial cities in the Middle Ages with the
other estates of the same period, nor to ask what was being
done at that time by the nobles and the princes. But,
in comparison with the other Teutonic nations — leaving
out of account some districts of Italy, and in the fine arts
the Germans did not lag behind even these, whereas in
the ^ useful arts they surpassed them and became their
teachers — leaving these out of account, I say that the
German burghers were the civilized people, and the
others the barbarians>-iThe history of Germany, of
German might, German enterprise and inventions, of

GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 105

German monuments and the German spirit — the history
of all these things during that period is nothing but the
history of those cities ; and everything else, for example
the mortgaging of petty territories and their subsequent
redemption and so on, is unworthy of mention. More
over, this period is the only one in German history in
which this nation is famous and brilliant, and holds the
rank to which, as the parent stock, it is entitled. As
soon as its bloom is destroyed by the avarice and tyranny
of princes, and as soon as its freedom is trodden under
foot, the whole nation gradually sinks lower and lower,
until the condition is reached in which we are at present.
But, as Germany sinks, the rest of Europe is seen to sink 1
with it, if we regard, not the mere external appearance,
but the soul. ^

The decisive influence of this bu,rgh^rxla.ss^ which was 1
in fact the ruling power, upon the development of the
German imperial constitution, upon the reformation
of the Church, and upon everything that ever character
ized the German nation and thence took its way abroad,
is everywhere unmistakable ; and it can be proved that
everything which is still worthy of honour among the
Germans has arisen in its midst.

85. In what spirit did this German burgher class
bring forth and enjoy this period of bloom ? In the
spirit of piety, of honour, of modesty, and of the sense
of community. For themselves they needed little ;
for public enterprises they set no limits to their expen
diture. Seldom does the name of an individual stand
out or distinguish itself, for they were all of like mind
and alike in sacrifice for the common weal. Under
precisely the same external conditions as in Germany,
free cities had arisen in Italy also. Compare the his
tories of both ; contrast the continual disorders, the

io6 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

internal conflicts, nay, even wars, the constant change of
constitutions and rulers in the latter with the peaceful
unity and concord in the former. How could it be more
clearly demonstrated that there must have been an
inward difference in the dispositions of the two nations ?
The German nation is the only one among the neo-
European nations that has shown in practice, by the
example of its burgher class for centuries, that it is capable
of enduring a republican ^aastitution. >f .

86. Of the separate and special means of once more
raising the German spirit a very powerful one would be
in our hands if we had a soul-stirring history of the
Germans in that period — one that would become a book
for the nation and for the people, just as the Bible and
the hymn-book are now, until the time came when we
ourselves had again achieved something worthy of record.
But such a history should not set forth deeds and events
after the fashion of a chronicle ; it should transport us
by its fascinating power, without any effort or clear con
sciousness on our part, into the very midst of the life of
that time, so that we ourselves should seem to be walking
and standing and deciding and acting with them. This
it should do, not by means of childish and trumpery
fabrications, as so many historical novels have done, but
by the truth ; and it should make those deeds and events
visible manifestations of the life of that time. Such a
work, indeed, could only be the fruit of extensive know
ledge and of investigations that have, perhaps, never yet
been made ; but the author should spare us the exhibi
tion of this knowledge and these investigations, and simply
lay the ripened fruit before us in the language of the
present day and in a manner that every German without
exception could understand. In addition to this historical
knowledge, such a work would demand a high degree of

GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 107

philosophical spirit, which should display itself just as
little, and above all things a faithful and loving disposition.
87. That age was the nation's youthful dream, within
a narrow sphere, of its future deeds and conflicts and
victories, and the prophecy of what it would be once
it had perfected its strength. Evil associations and the
seductive power of vanity have swept the growing nation
into spheres which are not its own ; and, because it there
sought glory too, it stands to-day covered with shame
and fighting for its very life. But has it indeed grown
old and feeble ? Has not the well of original life con
tinued to flow for it, as for no other nation, since then
and until to-day ? Can those prophecies of its youthful
life, which are confirmed by the condition of other
nations and by the plan of civilization for all humanity-f
can they remain unfulfilled ? Impossible ! O, tbt.
someone would bring back this nation from its false path,
and in the mirror of its youthful dreams show it its true
disposition and its true vocation ! There let it stand
and ponder, until it develops the power to take up its
vocation with a mighty hand. May this challenge be
of some avail in bringing out right soon a German nan
equipped to perform this preliminary task !

'

SEVENTH ADDRESS

A CLOSER STUDY OF THE ORIGINALITY AND
CHARACTERISTICS OF A PEOPLE

88. IN the preceding addresses we have indicated and
proved from history the characteristics of the Germans
Jis an original people, and as a people that has the right
tb call itself simply the people, in contrast to other
^anches that have been torn away from it ; for, indeed,
Je word " deutsch " in its real signification denotes
vt.at we have just said. It will be in accordance with
our purpose if we devote another hour to this subject
•and deal with a possible objection, viz., that if this is
something peculiarly German one must confess that at
.the present time there is butjdttlej^ftjhat is German
among the Germans themselves. As we are quite
unable to deny that this appears to be so, but rather
•intend to acknowledge it and to take a complete view of
it in its separate parts, we propose to give an explana
tion of it at the outset.

89. We have seen that the relationship in which the
original people of the modern world stood to the progress
of modern culture was as follows : the former received
• from the incomplete, and never more than superficial,
efforts of foreign countries the first stimulus to more
profound creative acts, which were to be developed from
its own midst. As it undoubtedly takes time for the

108

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 109

stimulus to result in a creative act, it is plain that such
a relationship will bring about periods of time in which
the original people must seem to be almost entirely
amalgamated with foreign peoples and similar to them,
because it is then being stimulated only, and the creative
act which is to be the result has not yet forced its way
through. It is in such a period of tirnejthat Qermany •(
finds itself a£jyie_£r£S£nt-^^ in regard to trie great \

majority of its educated inhabitants ; and that is the^
reason for those manifestations of a love of everything
foreign which are a part of the very inner soul and life
of this majority. , In the preceding address we saw that
the means by which foreign countries stimulate their
motherland at the present time is philosophy, which we I f
define'd as free-thinking released from all fetters of belief I A
in external authority. Now, when this stimulus has not '
resulted in a new creative act — and it will result thus in
extremely few cases, for the great majority have no con
ception of what creation means — the following effects are
observable. For one thing, that foreign philosophy
which we have already described changes its own form
again and again. Another thing is that its spirit usurps
the mastery over the other sciences whose borders are
contiguous with philosophy, and regards them from its
own ^oint of view. Finally, since the German after all
can never entirely lay aside his seriousness and its direct
influence on life, this philosophy influences the habits
of public life and the principles and rules that govern it.
We shall substantiate these assertions step by step.

90. First of all and before all things : man does not
form his scientific view in a particular way voluntarily
and arbitrarily, but.it is^-Qr^edJqr him by his life, and
is in reality the inner, and to him unknown, root oL his
ownjife, wEich has become his way of looking at _tlimgs7

no ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

It is what you really are in your inmost soul that stands
forth to your outward eye, and you would never be able
to see anything else. If ypjii_aj^-4ux_se^.difFerently, you
must first of all becomejiiflfirent. Now, the inner essence
of nonrGerman ways, or of non-originaliffit is the belief
in something that is__final, fixed, and settled beyond the
possibility of change, the belief in a border-line, on the
hither side of which free life may disport itself, but which
it is never able to break through and dissolve by its own
power, and which it can never make part of itself. This
impenetrable border-line is, therefore, inevitably present
to the eyes of foreigners at some place or other, and it is
impossible for them to think or believe except with such
a border-line as a presupposition, unless their whole
nature is to be transformed and their heart torn out of
their body. Thgy ine_vitably_believe in jeath as Alpha and
Omega, the ultimate source of all things and, therefore,
of life itself.

91. Our first task here is to show how this fundamental
belief of foreigners expresses itself among Germans at
the present time.

It expresses itself first of all in their own philosophy.
German philosophy of the present day, in so far as it is
worthy of mention here, strives for thoroughness and
scientific form, regardless of the fact that those things
are beyond its reach ; it strives for unity, and that also
not without the example of foreign countries in former
times ; it strives for reality and essence — not for mere
appearance, but to find for this appearance a foundation
appearing in appearance. In all these points it is right,
and far surpasses the philosophies prevailing in foreign
countries at the present day ; for German philosophy in
its love of everything foreign is far more thorough and
_more consistent than the foreign countries themselves.

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS in

Now this foundation, which is to be the basis of mere
appearance, is for those philosophies, however much more
incorrectly they may fur trier' define it, alwaj^s

which is just what it is and nothing more, chained in
itself aftd-baunji_±jQj^ De^th, therefore,

and alienation from originality, winch are within them,
stand forth before their eyes as well. Because they them
selves are unable by any effort to rise out of themselves
to life as such, but always need a prop and a support for
their free upward flight, they do not get beyond this
support in their thinking, which is the image of their life,
That which is not Something is to them inevitably s
Notfiing, "for their eyes see nothing else" ..... ^between that /
Being in which growth has ceased and the Nothing, J
because their life has nothing else. Their feeling,
which is their sole possible authority, seems to them
infallible. If anyone does not acknowledge this support
of theirs, they are far from assuming that to him life
alone is enough ; on the contrary, they believe that he
merely lacks the cleverness to perceive the support,
which they have no doubt supports him too, and the
capacity to raise himself by his exertions to their high
point of view. It is, therefore, futile and impossible to
instruct them ; one would have to construct them, and
to construct them differently, if one could. Now, in j
this matter German philosophy of the present day is j
not German, but a product of the foreign spirit.

92. True philosophy, on the other hand, which has
been perfected in itself and has penetrated beyond I
appearance to the very kernel of appearance, proceeds [
from the one,jpure, divine life — life simply as such, which
it remains for all eternity, and always one — but not from
this or that kind of life. It sees how it is only irTappear-
ance that this life ceaselessly closes and opens again,

ii2 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

nd how it is only in accordance with this law that life
attains Being and becomes a Something. In the view of
/this philosophy, Being arises, whereas the other presup-
|£oses_Jt. So, then, this philosophy is in a very special
sense German only — that is, original. Vice versa, if
anyone were but a true German, he could not philoso
phize in any way but this.

93. That system of thought, although it dominates the
/ majority of those who philosophize in German, is never-

theless not really a German system. Yet, whether it is
consciously set up as a true system of philosophical doctrine,
or whether, unknown to us, it is merely the basis for the
rest of our thinking, it influences the other scientific
, views of the age. Indeed, jt is a main effort of our age,
stimulated by foreign countries as we are, not merely
to lay hold of the material of science with the memory, as
our forefathers may be said to have done, but to turn it
over_in ou£^ own_inde£enden^ thought and to philosophize
uj)on_it. So farjas the effort is concerned, our age is in
the ..right ; but. when, iiLthe execution of this.^hilosophiz-
ing, it proceeds, as is to be expected, from the death-
creed .of foreign philosophy, it will be in the wrong.
In this place we propose to glance only at those sciences
which are most closely connected with our whole plan,
and to trace the foreign ideas and views which are so
widespread in them.

94. In holding that the establishment and government of
States should be looked upon as an indepejadeiit art having
its_own fixed rules, non-German countries have undoubt
edly .sermdjujs^sJiQrerunners, and they themselves found
their pattern in antiquity. But what will be regarded
as tfye art of-fehe-State bjf_such a non^Geiman country,
which in its language, the very element of its thinking
and willing, has a support that is fixed, closed, and dead ?

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 115

What, too, will all who follow its example regard as the
art of the State ? Undoubtedly it will be the art of finding v7
a similarly fixed and dead order of things, from which \\
condition of death the living movement of society is ta
proceed, and to proceed as this art intends. This inten-7 /
tion is to make the whole of life in society into a large I /
and ingeniously constructed clockwork, pressure-machine, \ />.
in which every single part will be continually compelled X
by the wffoIe~To~~serYe-^^ — The -intention is to/J

do a sum in arithmetic with finite and given quantities,
and produce from them an ascertainable result ; and thus,
on the assumption that everyone seeks his own well-being,*^
to compel everyone against his wish and will to promote j
the general well-being. Non-German countries have re- "
peatedly enunciated this principle and produced ingenious
specimens of this art of social machinery. The mother- \
land has adopted the theory, and developed its application
in the construction of social machines ; and here, too, as
always, in a manner that is deeper, truer, more thorough
going, and much. .superior to its models. If at any time
there is a stoppage in the accustomed process of society,
such artists of the State can give no other explanation
than that perhaps one of the wheels has become worn
out, and they know no other remedy than to remove
the defective wheels and insert new ones. The more
deeply rooted anyone is in this mechanical view of
society, and the better he understands how to simplify
the mechanism by making all the parts of the machine as
alike as possible and by treating them all as if they were
of the same material, the higher is his reputation as an
artist of the State in this age of ours : and rightly so, for
things are even worse when those in control hesitate and
come to no decision and are incapable of any definite
opinion.

8

ii2 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

; 95. This view of the art of the State enforces respect
by its iron consistency and by an appearance of sublimity
which falls upon it ; and up to a certain point, especially
when the whole tendency is towards a monarchical con
stitution, and one that is always becoming more purely
monarchical, it renders good service. But^ when it
reaches that point, its_impotence is apparent to everyone.
I will suppose that you have made your machine as perfect
as you intended, and that each and every lower part of
it is unceasingly and irresistibly compelled by a higher
part, which is itself compelled to compel, and so on up to
the top. But how will your final J>art, from which
proceeds the whole compelling power present in the
machine, be itself compelled to__coinjgel ? Suppose you
have overcome absolutely all the resistance to the main
spring that might arise from the friction of the various
parts, and suppose you have given that mainspring a
power against which all other power vanishes to nothing,
which is all you could do even by mechanism, and suppose
you have thus created a supremely powerful monarchical
constitution ; how are you going to set this mainspring
itself in motion and compel it without exception to see

it ? Tell me how you are going

to bring perpetual motion into your clockwork, which,
though properly designed and constructed, does not go.
Is, perhaps, as you sometimes say in your embarrassment,
the whole machine itself to react ancl to set its own main-
^pring in motion ? Either this happens by a power that
itself proceeds from the stimulus of the mainspring ; or
/else it happens by a power that does not proceed thence,
but is to be found in the whole thing independent of
the mainspring. No third way is possible. If you
suppose the first, you find yourselves reasoning in a circle,
and your principles of mechanics are in a .circle too ; the

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 115

whole machine can compel the mainspring only in so
far as the machine itself is compelled by the mainspring
to compel it — that is to say, in so far as the mainspring
only indirectly compels itself. But if it does not compel
itself, and this is the defect we set out to remedy, no
motion whatever results. If you suppose the second case,
you confess that the source of all motion in your machine
is a power that has not entered at all into your calcula
tions and regulations, and is not in any way controlled by
your mechanism. This power undoubtedly works as it
can without your aid and according to its own laws,
which are unknown to you. In each of the two cases,
you must confess yourselves botchers and impotent
boasters.

96. Now, people-have felt .this, and so they have wished,^
under this system which, in its reliance upon compulsion, j
need not-concern itself about the other citizens, to educate \
Sit any rate the prince by every kind of good doctrine and )
instruction ; for from the prince the whole movement ,
of societyj^iooeeds. But how can one be sure of finding
someone who by nature is capable of receiving the educa
tion that~U to make a prince ? Even if by a stroke of
luck he were to be found, how can one be sure that he,
whom no man can compel, will be ready and willing to
submit to discipline ? Such a view of the art of the
State, whether it is found on ibreigrTor German soil, is
always a product of the foreign spirit. Here we may
remark^tq the ho^nourjof the German race and the German
spirit, that, however good artists we might be in the mere
theory of these calculations which are based on compul
sion, none the less, when it came to putting them into
practice, we were very much hampered by the dim
feeling that things_ should not be done in this way ; and'N
so in this matter \ve remained behind foreign countries. )

u6 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

Therefore, even should we be compelled to accept the
boon of foreign forms and laws intended for us, at least
let us not be unduly ashamed, as if our intelligence had
been incapable of attaining these heights of legislation.
As we are not inferior to any nation even in legislating,
when we only have the pen in our hands, it may well be
that we felt with regard to life that even the making of
such laws was not the right thing ; and so we preferred
to let the old system stand until the perfect system
should come to us, instead of merely exchanging the old
fashion for a new one just as transitory.

97. Altogether different is the genuine German art
of the State. It, too, seeks fixity, surety, and independence
of blind and halting nature, and in this it is quite in agree-
j ment with foreign countries. But, unlike these, it does
i not seek a fixed and certain thing, as the first element,
j which will make the spirit, as the second element, certain ;
on the contrary, it seeks from the very beginning, and as
the very first and only element, a firm and certain
spirit. This is for it the mainspring, whose life
i proceeds from itself, and which has perpetual motion ;
\ the mainspring which will regulate, and continually
^tkeep in motion, the life of society. The German art of
*-Uthe State understands that it cannot create this spirit
] jby reprimanding adults who are already spoilt by neglect,
i but only by educating the young, who are still unspoilt.y
Moreover, with this education it will not turn, as foreign
countries do, to the solitary peak, the prince, but to the
broad plain which is the nation ; for indeed the prince,
too, will without doubt be part of the nation. Just as
| the State, in the persons of its adult citizens, is the con-
[ tinued education of the human race, so must the future
citizen himself, in the opinion of this art of the State,
Vfirst be educated up to the point of being susceptible to

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 117

that higher education. So this German and very modern —
art of the State becomes once more the very ancient
art of the State, whicja^amcaigv^

citizenship on education and trained such citizens as
succeeding ages have never seen. Henceforth the German
will do what is in form the same, though in content it
will be characterized by a spirit that is not narrow and;
exclusive, but universal and cosmopolitan.

98. That foreign__spirit to which we have referred
prevails among the great majority of our people in another
matter, ~viz7r~their view of the whole life of a human
race and of history as the picture of that life. A nation
whose Lmguage has^a^dead and completed foundation
can only advance, as we showed on a previous occasion,
to a certainjrtage of development in all the departments of
rhetoric. That stage depends on the foundation of the
language, and the nation will experience a golden age.
Unless such a nation is extremely modest and self-depreci-
ative, it cannot fittingly think more highly of the whole
race than it does of itself, from its own knowledge ;
hence, it must assume that there will be a final, highest,
and for ever unsurpassable goal for all human develop
ment. Just as those animal species, the beavers and the
bees, still build in the way they built thousands of years
ago, and have made no progress in the art during that long
period of time, so it will be, according to that nation,
with the animal species called man in all branches of
his development. These branches, impulses, and capaci
ties it will be possible to survey exhaustively, and indeed
to see on examining a few members ; and then it will be
possible to indicate the highest development of each one
of them. Perhaps the human species will be far worse
off than the bee or beaver species ; for, though the latter
learn nothing new, they nevertheless do not deteriorate

u8 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

in their art, whereas man, when he has once reached the
summit, is hurled back again, and may struggle for
hundreds or thousands of years to regain the point at
which it would have been better to leave him undis
turbed. The human species, so these people think, will
undoubtedly have attained such culminating points in
education in the past, and enjoyed more than one golden
age ; to discover these points in history, to judge all
the efforts of humanity by them, and to lead humanity
back to them, will be their most strenuous endeavour.
^; According to them, history was finished long ago and has
/ been finished several times already. According to them,
' there is nothing new under the sun, for they have destroyed
- the source of eternal life under and over the sun, and only
let eternally-recurring death repeat itself and subside
time after time.

99. It is_well known that this philosophy of history has

come to us from "foreign, countries, although it is dying

away even there at the present day and has become

almost exclusively German property. From this closer

rkinship it follows also that this philosophy of history, which

/ we call ours, is able to understand the efforts of foreign

( countries through and through ; and, although this

view of history is no longer expressed very often in

those countries, they go beyond expression, for they are

acting in accordance with it and constructing once more

a golden age. This philosophy is even able to prophesy,

^nd to point out to them the path they have still to take ;

jit can pay them the tribute of genuine admiration,

Which one who thinks as a German cannot pretend to do.

jlndeed, how could he ? Golden ages are to him in every

respect a limitation proceeding from a state of death.

Gold may indeed be the most precious metal in the lap

of dead earth, he thinks, but the stuff of the living spirit

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 119

is beyond the sun and beyond all suns, and is their source. ^
For him history, and with it the human race, does not I
unfold itself according to some mysterious hidden law, I
like a round dance ; on the contrary, in his opinion a ff
true and proper man himself makes history, not merely |
repeating what has existed already, but throughout all H
time creating what is entirely new. Hence, he never J
expects mere repetition, and even if it should happen
word for word as the old book says, at any rate he does not
admire it.

100. Now, the deadly foreign spirit, without our being I
clearly aware of it, spreads itself in a similar way over the,/
rest of our scientific views, of which it may suffice to
have adduced the examples quoted. This happens
because at the present day we are working in our own
fashion upon stimuli previously received from abroad,
and are passing through that intermediate state. Because
it was pertinent to the matter in hand, I adduced those
examples ; and partly, too, so that no one should think
himself able to refute the statements here made by de
ductions from the principles which we have quoted. .It
is not the case that those principles would have remained
unknown to us, or that we could not ourselves have risen
to their high level ; far from it. On the contrary, we
know them quite well, and might perhaps, if we had time
to spare, be capable of developing them backwards and
forwards in their complete logical sequence. Only we
reject them right from the very beginning and also all
their consequences, of which there are more in our tradi
tional way of thinking than the superficial observer may
find it easy to believe.

This foreign spirit influences not only our scientific:^
view of things, but also, and in the same way, our ordinary ,'
life and the rules that govern it. But, in order to make/

120 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

this clear, and to make what has been said still clearer, it is
necessary first of all to scrutinize more keenly the essence
of original life^ or freedom.

101. Freedom, taken in the sense of indecisive hesita
tion between several courses equally possible, is not life,
but only the forecourt and portal to real life. At some
time or other there must be an end of this hesitation
and an advance to decision and action ; and only then
does life begin.

Now, at first sight, and when viewed directly, every
decision of the will appears as something primary, and in
no wise as something secondary, or as the effect of a primary
thing which is its cause. It appears to be something
existing simply by itself, and existing just as it is. This
f meaning we wish to establish as the sole possible sensible
I meaning of the word freedom. But, with regard to the
inner content of such a decision of the will, there are
two cases possible, viz., on the one hand, there appears
in it only appearance, separated from essence and without
essence entering into its appearance in any way ; on the
other hand, essence enters in appearance into this appear
ance of a decision of the will. In this connection it
jmust be remarked at once that essence can become
'apparent only in a decision of the will, and in nothing
else whatever, although, on the other hand, there may be
decisions of the will in which essence does not manifest
itself at all, but only mere appearance. We proceed to
discuss the latter case first.

1 02. By its separation from, and its opposition to,
essence, as well as by the fact that it is itself capable of
appearing and presenting itself, mere appearance simply
as such is unaljeFafcljL^deler mined, and it is, therefore,
inevitably just what it is and turns out to be. Hence,
if any given decision of the will is, as we assume, in its

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 121

content mere appearance, it is to that extent, not in fact
free, primary, and original, but it is a result of necessity,
and is a secondary element proceeding just as it is from
a higher primary element, viz., the general law of appear
ance. Now, the thinking of man, as we have mentioned
several times already, represents man to himself just as
he actually is, and always remains the true copy and mirror
of his inner being. For this reason, although such a
decision of the will appears at first sight to be free, just
because it is called a decision of the will, yet it cannot
appear so at all to deeper and prolonged thinking ; on
the contrary, the latter must think that it is a result of
necessity, which, of course, it actually is in fact. For
those people, whose will has never yet raised itself to a
higher sphere than the one in which it is held that a
will merely appears in them, the belief in freedom is, of
course, a delusion and a deception, proceeding from a
view that is casual and does not go beneath the surface.
For them there is truth only in thought — thought that
shows them everywhere only the chain of strict necessity.
103. The first and fundamental law of appearance,
simply as such, (we are entitled to refrain from stating the
reason, all the more so because it has been sufficiently
given elsewhere) is this : that it falls into a manifoldness,
which, in a certain respect, is an endless whole and, in a
certain other respect, a whole complete in itself. In
this completed whole of manifoldness every single part
is determined by all the rest, and, again, all the rest are
determined by this single part. Hence, if in the decision
of the will of the individual there emerges into appearance
nothing but the possibility of appearance and of repre
sentation, and visibility in general, which is in fact the
visibility of nothing, then the content of such a decision
of the will is determined by the completed whole of all

122 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

the possible will-decisions of this will and of all the other
possible individual wills ; and it. contains, and can con
tain, nothing more than that which remains to be willed
after all those possible decisions of the will have been
| abstracted. Hence, there is in fact nothing independent,
I original, and individual in it ; on the contrary, it is merely
' .secondary, the consequence of the general connection of
[the sum of appearance in its separate parts. Indeed, it
has always been recognized as such by all who, though
on this level of culture, were capable of profound thought,
and their recognition of it has been expressed in the same
words as those of which we have just made use. But all
I this is the result of the fact that in them not essence, but
J merely appearance, enters into appearaHceC"

104. On the other hand, where essence_ rtself enters
into the appearance of a decision of the. will directly and,
so to speak, in its own person and not by any representa
tive, then all that has been mentioned above is likewise
present, following as it does from appearance as a com-
pleted whole, for appearance appears here also. But an
appearance of this kind does not consist merely of this sum
of its component partsa nor is it exhausted ky-that sum ;
on the contrary, there is in it something more, another
component part which is not to be explained by that
connection, but remains over after what is explicable has
been abstracted. That first component part is present
'here too, I said; that 'something more' becomes visible,
and, by means of this visibility, but not at all by means, of
its inner essence, it comes under the general law~and the
conditions of visibleness. But it is still more than this ,
' something,' which proceeds from some law or other and
which, therefore, is a secondary thing and the result of
necessity ; and, in respect of this ' more,' it is of itself what
it is, a truly primary, original, and free thing. Since it

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 123

is this, it also appears thus to that thought which is deepest
and which has found completion in itself. The highest
law of visibleness is, as we have said, this : that the thing)
appearing splits itself into an infinite manifoldness. This l
6 more ' becomes visible, on every occasion, as more than
what proceeds at any particular moment from the sum total
of appearance, and so on into infinity ; hence, this £ more '
itself appears infinite. But it is as clear as noonday that
it acquires this infinity only because it is on each occasion
visible and thinkable, and that it is to be discovered only by
its contrast to what follows eternally from the sum total,
and by its being more than this. But, apart from this
ne£d of thinking it, it exists, this £ more than everything
infinite,' which has the power of presenting itself eternally ;
this ' more,' I say, exists in pure simplicity and invariability
from the very beginning, and in all infinity it does not
become more than this ' more,' nor does it become less.
Nothing but its visibleness as more than the infinite —
and in no other way can it become visible in its highest
purity — creates the infinite and all that appears to appear
in it. Now, where this ' more ' actually enters as such a
visible ' more ' — but it can only enter in an act of will-
there essence itself, which alone exists and alone can exist,
and which exists of itself and by itself, divine essence enters
into appearance a-fteLmakes itself directly visible ; and ini
that place there exists, for that very reason, true originality
and freedom, and so there is also a belief in them.

105. So, to tl^g general question whether man is free
or not, there is no generaTanswer"7~foT7 "juTrtecauselhan
is free" in the lower sense, because he begins in indecisive
vacillation and hesitation, he may be free, or he may not
be free, in the higher sense of the word. In reality, the
way in which anyone answers this question is the clear
mirror of his true inward being. He who is in fact no

124 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

more than a link in the chain of appearances may, perhaps,
for a moment be under the delusion that he is free ; but
this delusion cannot hold its ground when he thinks more
strictly. Of necessity he thinks that all his fellows are
in the condition in which he finds himself. On the other
hand, he, whose life is p^£ggssedby the truth and has
becom^Jife direct fi^m__Go3^TIIfree__and _ believes in
freedom in himsel£_£nd^Dthers^_

1 66. He "whcTbelieves in a fixed, rigid, and dead state
of being believes in it only because he is dead in himself ;
and, once he is dead, he cannot do anything but believe
thus, so soon as ever he becomes clear in himself. He
himself, with all his kind from beginning to end, becomes

'something secondary and a necessary consequence of
•some presupposed primary element. This presupposition
is his actual thinking, and by no means a merely fancied
thinking ; it is his true mind, the point at which his
thinking is itself directly life. Thus it is the source of
all the rest of his thinking, and of his judgment of his
kind in its past, which is history, in its future, which is
his expectations for it, and in its present, which is actual
life in himself and others.

This belief in death, as contrasted with an original and
living people, we have called-the foreign spir.it. When
once this foreign spirit is present among Germans it will,
therefore, reveal itself in their actual life also, as quiet
resignation to what they deem the unalterable necessity
of their existence, as the abandonment of all hope of
improvement of ourselves or others by means of freedom,

1 as a disposition to make use of themselves and everyone
else just as they are, and to derive from their existence
the greatest possible advantage for ourselves ; in short, it
will reveal itself as the confession, eternally reflecting itself
in every stirring of life, of a belief in the universal and

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 12?

equal sinfulness of all. This belief I have sufficiently
described in another place ; 1 I leave you to read this
description for yourselves and to decide how far it fits
the present time. This way of thinking and acting
arises from the state of inward death, as has often been
mentioned, only when that state becomes clear about
itself. On the other hand, so long as that^stateremains
in darknesSjjtj^l^ in free^m^_whicri belief

is in ijtself true, and is only aUelusion when it is applied
to existence in such a state of mind. Here we see clearly
and distinctly the disadvantage of clearness when the
soul is base. So long as this baseness remains in darkness,
it is continually disquieted, goaded, and impelled by the
unceasing claim to freedom, and it presents a point of
attack to the attempts to improve it. But clearness com
pletes it and rounds it off in itself ; clearness imparts to
this base state of mind a cheerful resignation, the calm
of a good conscience, and self-satisfaction. As their^
belief is, so is the result ; from now onwards they are in j
fact incapable of improvement ; at the most they serve
to keep alive among their betters a pitiless loathing of
evil or a resignation to the will of God ; but, apart from
that, they are not of the least use in the world.

107. So, let there appear before you at last in complete
clearness what we havejneant by Germans, as we have
so far described them. The true criterion is this : do
you believe in something absolutely primary and original
in man himself, in freedom, in endless improvement, in
the eternal progress of our race, or do you not believe in
all this, but ratEer imagine that you clearly perceive and
comprehend that the opposite of all this takes place ?
All who either are themselves alive and creative and

1 [Fichte adds this note here : see the Guide to the Blessed Life,
Lecture II.]

,26 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

productive of new things, or who, should this not have
| fallen to their lot, at any rate definitely abandon the things
of ^ naught and stand on the watch for the stream of
original life to lay hold of them somewhere, or who,
should they not even be so far advanced as this, at least
(have an inkling of freedom and do not hate it or take
'fright at it, but on the contrary love it — all these are
joriginal^men ; they are, when considered as a people,
11 gngmaT people, the peoglejir^^gpT^an^^ All
Wh° r^*gn "d^selves to being "something secondary
and derivative, ariffwBo "Histmctly know and comprehend
that they are such, are so in fact, and become ever more
so because of this belief of theirs ; (they are an appendix to
the lif ejyjiich bestirred itself of its own accord before them
or beside them ; they are an echo resounding from the
rock, an echo of a voice already silent ; jhey are, con
sidered as a people, outside the original people, and to the
latter they are ^strangers and foreigners. In_the nation
I which to this very day calls itself simgl^y^ people, or

I Gqinians, originality has broken forth into the light of

day in modern times, at any rate up to now, and the
power of creating new things has shown itself. Now, at
last, by a philosophy that has become clear in itself, the
mirror is being held up to this nation, in which it may
recognize and form _a clear conception of that which it
hitherto becaTn£jby_jiature without being distinctly

Eonscious of it, and to which it is called by nature ; and
proposal is being made to this nation to make itself
/holly and completely what it ought to be, to do this
according to that clear conception and with free, and
deliberate art, to renew the alliance, and to close its circle.
The principle according to which it has to close its
circle is laid before it : whoever believes in spirituality
and in the freedom of this spirituality, and who wills

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 127

>-~Ov

the eternal development of this spirituality by freedom, \ \

wherever he may have been born and whatever language \Y J •
he speaks, is of our blood ; he is one of us, and will come
over to our side. Whoever _ believes in stagnation, }
retrogression, and the round dance of which weTTpok^ ' ,
or who sets a deacl "nature at the helm of the world's
government, wherever he may have been born and what
ever language he speaks, is-jion-German and a stranger
to usj_and it is to be wished that he would separate
himself from us completely, and the sooner the better.

108. So, too, at this point let there appear before you
at last, and unmistakably, what that philosophy, which
with good reason calls itselfthe German philosophy,
really wants, and wherein it is strictly, earnestly, and
inexorably opposed to any foreign philosophy that believes
in death. The German philosophy has as its support \
what we jsajd above about_ freedom j and he that still
hath ears to hear, let him hear. Let it appear before you,
not in the least with the intention of making the dead
understand it, which is impossible, but so that it may be
harder for the dead to twist its words, and to make out
that they themselves want more or less the same thing
and at bottom are of the same mind. This German ']
philosophy does, indeed, raise itself by the act of thinking i
— not merely boasting about it, in accordance with a dim
notion that it ought to be so, without being able to put
it into practice — it raises itself to the ' more than all
infinity ' that is unchangeable, and in this alone it finds true
being. It perceives time and eternity and infinity in their!
rise from the appearing and becoming visible of that One
which is in itself invisible and which is only comprehended,
rightly comprehended, in this invisibility. Even infinity
is, according to this philosophy, nothing in itself, and there
is in it no true being whatever. It is solely the means

128 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

by which the One thing that exists, and exists only in its
invisibility, becomes visible, and the means by which there
is built up for the One an image, a form, and a shadow
of itself in the sphere of imagery. Everything else that
may become visible within this infinity of the world of
images is a nothing proceeding from nothing, a shadow
of the shadow, and solely the means by which that first
nothing of infinity and time itself becomes visible and
opens up to thought the ascent to invisible being without
image.

Within this, the sole possible image of infinity, the
invisible directly manifests itself only as free and original
life of the sight, or as a decision of the will made by a
reasonable being ; in no other way whatever can it appear
and manifest itself. All continuous existence that appears
as non-spiritual life is only an empty shadow projected
from the world of sight and enlarged by the intermediary
of the nothing — a shadow, in contrast to which, and by
recognizing it as a nothing enlarged by transmission,
the world of sight itself ought to elevate itself to the
recognition of its own nothingness and to the acknow
ledgment of the invisible as the only thing that is true.

109. Now, in these shadows of the shadows of shadows
that philosophy of being, which believes in death and
becomes a mere philosophy of nature, the deadest of all
philosophies, remains a captive, and dreads and worships
its own creature.

This constancy is the expression of its true life and of
its love ; and herein this philosophy is to be believed.
But, when it goes on to say that this being, which it
presupposes as actually existing, is one with, and precisely
the same as, the Absolute, it is not to be believed, no matter
how often it asserts this, nor even though it takes many an
oath in confirmation. It does not know this, but only

CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 129

utters it trusting to luck, and blindly echoing another
philosophy whose tenet in this matter it does not venture
to dispute. If it should want to make good its claim to
knowledge, it would have to proceed, not from duality as
an undisputed fact (which its dictum, against which there
is no appeal, does away with only to leave in full sway)
but, on the contrary, from unity. From this unity it
would have to be capable of deducing duality, and with it
all manifoldness, in a clear and intelligible fashion.
For this, however, thought is needed, and reflection
consummated and perfected in itself. The philosophy
we are referring to has, for one thing, never learnt the
art of thinking in this way and is indeed incapable of it,
having only the power to indulge in reverie. Besides, it
is hostile to this way of thinking and has no inclination
whatever to attempt it ; for, if it did, it would be dis
turbed in the illusion that it holds so dear.

This, then, is the essential thing in which our philo
sophy deliberately opposes that philosophy ; and on this
occasion it has been our purpose, once for all, to enunciate
and establish this as definitely as possible.

EIGHTH ADDRESS

WHAT IS A PEOPLE IN THE HIGHER MEANING OF THE
WORD, AND WHAT IS LOVE' OF FATHERLAND ?

1 10. THE last four addresses have answered the question :
What is the German as contrasted with other peoples
of Teutonic descent ? The proof to be adduced by all
this for our investigation as a whole is completed when we
examine the further question : What is a people ? This
latter question is similar to another, and when it is answered
the other is answered too. The other question, which is.
often raised and the answers to which are very different/
is this : What is love of fatherland, or, to express it more
correctly, what is the love of the individual for his nation ?

If we have hitherto proceeded correctly in the course
of our investigation, it must here be obvious at once that
only the German — the original man, who has not become
dead in an arbitrary organization — really has a people and
is entitled to count on one, and that he alone is capable of
real and rational love for his nation.

The problem having been thus stated, we prepare the
way for its solution by the following observation, which
seems at first to have no connection with what has pre
ceded it.

in. Religion, as we have already remarked in our
third address, is able to transcend all time and the whole
of this present sensuous life, without thereby causing the

130

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 131

slightest detriment to the righteousness, morality, and
holiness of the life that is permeated by this belief.
Even if one is firmly persuaded that all our effort on this
earth will not leave the slightest trace behind it nor
yield the slightest fruit, nay more, that the divine effort
will even be perverted and become an instrument of
evil and of still deeper moral corruption, one can none
the less continue the effort, solely in order to maintain
the divine life that has manifested itself in us, and with
a view to a higher order of things in a future world, inV
which no deed that is of divine origin is lost. Thus the
apostles, for example, and the primitive Christians
in general, because of their belief in heaven had their
hearts entirely set on things above the earth even in
their lifetime ; and earthly affairs — the State, their
earthly fatherland, and nation — were abandoned by them
so entirely that they no longer deemed them worthy of
attention. Possible though this is, and to faith not
difficult, and joyfully though one must resign one's self,
once it is the unalterable will of God, to having an earthly
fatherland no longer and to being serfs and exiles here
below, nevertheless it is not the

_ _

rule of tri^universe ; on the contrary, it is a rare exception.
It is a grosjymsu,sej}f religion, a misuse of which Chris
tianity among other religions has frequently been guilty,
to make a point of recommending, on principle and
without regard to existing circumstances, such a with
drawal from the affairs of the State and the nation as
the mark of a true religious disposition. In such a con-a
dition of things, if it is true and real and not merely the!
product of fitful religious zeal, temporal life loses allr
^independent existence and becomes merely a forecourt 1
of true life and a period of severe trial which is endured \
only out of obedience and resignation to the will of God.

1 32 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

Then it is true that immortal souls, as many have imagined,
are housed in earthly bodies, as in prisons, for their punish
ment. But, on the other hand, in the regular order of
things this earthly life itself is intendeJ~Eo^Ee~t'ruly life,
of which we may be glad and which we may enjoy in
gratitude, while, of course, looking forward to a higher
life. Although it is true that religion is, for one thing,
the consolation of the unjustly oppressed slave, yet this
above all is the mark of a religious disposition, viz., to
fight against slavery and, as far as possible, to prevent
religion from sinking into a mere consolation for captives.
No doubt it suits the tyrant well to preach religious
resignation and to bid those look to heaven to whom he
allows not the smallest place on earth. But we for our
part must be in less haste to adopt this view of religion
that he recommends ; and we must, if we can, prevent
earth from being made into a hell in order to arouse a
greater longing for heaven.

112. The natural impulse of man, which should be
abandoned only in case of real necessity, is to find heaven
on this earth, and to endow his daily work on earth with
permanence and eternity ; to plant and to cultivate the
eternal in the temporal — not merely in an incomprehen-

%ible fashion or in a connection with the eternal that seems
to mortal eye an impenetrable gulf, but in a fashion

\visible to the mortal eye itself.

Let me begin with an example that everyone will under
stand. What man of noble mind is there who does not
earnestly wish to relive his own life in a new and better
way in his children and his children's children, and to con
tinue to live on this earth, ennobled and perfected in their
lives, long after he is dead ? Does he not wish to snatch
from the jaws of death the spirt, the mind, and the moral
sense by virtue of which, perchance, he was in the days

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 133

of his life a terror to wrongdoing and corruption, and
by which he supported righteousness, aroused men from
indolence, and lifted them out of their depression ? Does
he not wish to deposit these qualities, as his best legacy
to posterity, in the souls of those he leaves behind, so
that they too, in their turn, may some day hand them on
again, increased and made more beautiful ? What man of
noble mind is there who does not want to scatter, by
action or thought, a grain of seed for the unending
progress in perfection of his race, to fling something new
and unprecedented into time, that it may remain there
and become the inexhaustible source of new creations ?
Does he not wish to pay for his place on this earth and
the short span of time allotted to him with something |
that even here below will endure for ever, so that he, the
individual, although unnamed in history (for the thirst
for posthumous fame is contemptible vanity), may yet in
his own consciousness and his faith leave behind him
unmistakable memories that he, too, was a dweller on the^.
earth ? What man of noble mind is there, I said, who
does notj^nt this ? But only according to the needs of {
noble-minded men is the world to be regarded and j
arranged ; as they are, so all men ought to be, and for
their sake ajnnp HOPS a world ^ejxjst. They are its kernel,
and those of other mind exist only for their sake, being
themselves only a part of the transitory world so long
as they are of that mind. Such men must conform to^\
the wishes of the noble-minded until they have become^/
like them.

113. Now, what is it that could warrant this challenge
and this faith of the noble-minded man in the perman
ence and eternity of his work ? Obviously nothing j
but an order of things which he can acknowledge as in (
itself eternal and capable of taking up into itself that which

:

134 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

is eternal. Such an order of things, however, is the special

spintua]_nature_of human environment which, although

indeed it is not to be comprehended in any conception,

nevertheless truly exists, and from which he himself, with

all his thoughts and deeds and with his belief in their

eternity, has proceeded — the people, from which he is

descended and among which he was educated and grew

up to be what he now is. For, though it is true beyond

dispute that his work, if he rightly claims it to be eternal,

is in no wise the mere result of the spiritual law of nature

of his nation or absolutely the same thing as this result,

/ but on the contrary is something more than that and in

so far streams forth directly from original and divine life ;

f it is, nevertheless, equally true that this ' something more,'

immediately on its first embodiment in a visible form,

submitted itself to that special spiritual law of nature and

found sensuous expression for itself only according to that

law. So long as this people exists, every further revelation

of the divine will appear and take shape in that people

in accordance with the same natural law. But this law

itself is further determined by the fact that this man

existed and worked as he did, and his influence has become

, a permanent part of this law. Hence, everything that

follows will be bound to submit itself to, and connect

, itself with, that law. So he is sure that the improvement

i achieved by him remains in his people so long as the

j people itself remains, and that it becomes a permanent

i determining factor in the evolution of his people.

114. This, then, is a people in the higher meaning of

f the word, when viewed from the standpoint of a spiritual

I world : the totality of men continuing to live in society

with each other and continually creating themselves

/ naturally and spiritually out of themselves, a totality

I that arises together out of the divine under a certain

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 135

special law of divine development. It is the subjection
in common to this special law that unites this mass in
the eternal world, and therefore in the temporal also,
to a natural totality permeated by itself . The significance f\
of this law itself can indeed be comprehended as a whole,
as we have comprehended it by the instance of the
Germans as an original people ; it can even be better
understood in many of its further provisions by consider
ing the manifestations of such a people ; but it can never
be completely grasped by the mind of anyone, for everyone
continually remains under its influence unknown to him
self, although, in general, it can be clearly seen that such a
law exists. This law is a ' something more ' of the world of
images, that coalesces absolutely in the phenomenal world
with the ' something more ' of the world of originality
that cannot be imaged ; hence, in the phenomenal world
neither can be separated again from the other. Thatj
law determines entirely and completes what has beenj
called the national character of a people — that la.w_Q£j±u|
^^ divine". From this it is

clear that men who, as is the case with what we have
described as the foreign spirit, do not believe at all in
something original nor in its continuous development, but j
only in an eternal recurrence of apparent life, and who 1
by their belief become what they believe, are in the higher
sense not a people at all. As they in fact, properly
speaking, do not exist, they are just as little capable of
having a national character.

115. The noble-minded man's belief in the eternal
continuance of his influence even on this earth is thus
founded on the hope of the eternal continuance of the
people .from which he has developed, and on the character
istic of that people as indicated in the hidden~~law of
which we have spoken, without admixture of, or corruption

136 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

by, any alien element which does not belong to the totality
of 'the functions of that law. This characteristic is the
eternal thing to which he entrusts the eternity of himself
and of his continuing influence, the eternal order of
things in which he places his portion of eternity ; he
must will its continuance, for it alone is to him the means
by which the short span of his life here below is extended

- into continuous life here below. His belief and his struggle
to plant what is permanent, his conception in which he
comprehends his own life as an eternal life, is t]ie_bond
which unites first his own nation, and jhen, through

, his nation, the whole human race, in a most intimate
fashion with himself, and brings all their needs within
his widened sympathy until the end of time. This is

Qiis love for his people, respecting, trusting, and rejoicing

pin it, and feeling honoured by descent from it. The
divine has appeared in it, and that which is original has
deemed this people worthy to be made its vesture and
its means of directly influencing the world ; for this
reason there will be further manifestations of the divine

Mn it. Hence, the noble-minded man will be active and
effective, and will sacrifice himself for hisjDeople. Life
merely as such, the mere continuance of changing exis
tence, has in any case never had any value for him ; he
has wished for it only as the source of what is permanent.
But this permanence is promised to him only by the
continuous and independent existence of his nation.
In order to save his nation he must be ready even to die
that it may live(\and that he may live in it the only life
for which he has ever wished.

1 1 6. So it is. Love that is truly love, and not a mere
transitory lust, never clings to what is transient ; only
in the eternal does it awaken and become kindled, and
there alone does it rest. Man is not able to love even

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 137

himself unless he conceives himself as eternal ; apart from
that he cannot even respect, much less approve of, him
self. Still less can he love anything outside himself^
without taking it up into the eternity of his faith and of I
his soul and binding it thereto. He who does not first
regard himself as eternal has in him no love of any kind, ]
and, moreover, cannot love a fatherland, a thing which for I
him does not exist. He who regards his invisible life as
eternal, but not his visible life as similarly eternal, may
perhaps have a heaven and therein a fatherland, but
here below he has no fatherland, for this, too, is regarded
only in the image of eternity — eternity visible and made
sensuous — and for this reason also he is unable to love his
fatherland. If none has been handed down to such a
man, he is to be pitied. But he to whom a fatherland
has been handed down, and in whose soul heaven and
earth, visible and invisible meet and mingle, and thus,
and only thus, create a true and enduring heaven — such
a man rights to the last drop of his blood to hand on
the precious possession unimpaired to his posterity.

So it always has been, although it has not always been
expressed in such general terms and so clearly as we
express it here. What inspired the men of noble mind
among the Romans, whose frame of mind and way of
thinking still live and breathe among us in their works of
art, to struggles and sacrifices, to patience and endurance
for the fatherland ? They themselves express it often
and distinctly. It was their fir^bjeli^f_jn__the eternal
continuance of their Roma, and their confident expecta
tion "tEF~Breyr~3iemselves would eternally continue to
live in this eternity in the stream of time. In so far as
this belief was well founded, and they themselves would
have comprehended it if they had been entirely clear
in their own minds, it did not deceive them. To this

V

138 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

very day there still lives in our midst what was truly
eternal in their eternal Roma ; they themselves live with
it, and its consequences will continue to live to the very
end of time.

"117. People and fatherland in this sense, as a support
and guarantee of eternify~~bn earth and as that which
can be eternal here below, far transcend the State in the
ordinary sense of the word, viz., the social order as compre
hended by mere intellectual conception and as established

-J-auud maintained under the guidance of this conception.

\ The aim of the State is positive law> internal peace, and

\ a condition of affairs in which everyone may by diligence
earn his daily bread and satisfy the needs of his material
existence, so long as God permits him to live. All this
is only a means, a condition, and a frajnework for what
love of^fatherland really wants^ viz., that the eternal and
the divine may blossom in the world^ and never cease
to become more and more jmre, perfect, and excellent.
I That is why this love of fatherland mustTtself govern the
*— NState and be the supreme, final, and^absouTte authority./
Its 'rirsF~exer else of this authority will be to limit the
States choice of means to secure its immediate object
—internal p_eace. To attain this object, the natural
freedom of the individual must, of course, be limited in
many ways. If the only consideration and intention in
regard to individuals were to secure internal peace, it
would be well to limit that liberty as much as possible,
to bring all their activities under a uniforin^rule, and to
keep them under unceasm^ supervision. Even supposing
such strictness were unnecessary, it could at any rate do
no harm, if this were the sole object. It is only the higher
1 view of the human race and of peoples which extends this
narrow calculation. Freedom, including freedom in the

! activities of external life, is the soil in which higher culture

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND

germinates ; a legislation which keeps the higher
in view will allowT to freedom as wide a field as possible
even at the risk of securing a smaller degree of uniform
peace and quietness, and of making the work of govern-
ment a little harder and more troublesome.

118. To illustrate this by an example. It has happened
that nations have been told to their face that they do not
need so much freedom as many other nations do. It may
even be that the form in which the opinion is expressed
is considerate and mild, if what is really meant is that the
particular nation would be quite unable to stand so much
freedom, and that nothing but extreme severity could
prevent its members from destroying each other. But,
when the words are taken as meaning what they say, they
are true only on the supposition that such a nation is
thoroughly incapable of having original life or even the
impulse towards it. Such a nation — if a nation could
exist in which there were not even a few men of noble mind
to make an exception to the general rule — would in fact
need no freedom at all, for this is needed only for the
higher purposes that transcend the State. It needs only
to be tamed and trained, so that the individuals may live
peaceably with each other and that the whole may be
made into an efficient instrument for arbitrary purposes
in which the nation as such has no part. Whethes
this can be said with truth of any nation at all we may
leave undecided ; this much is clear, that an original
people needs freedom, that this is the security for its
continuance as an original people, and that, as it goes on,
it is able to stand an ever-increasing degree of freedom
without the slightest danger. This is the first matter in
respect of which love of fatherland must govern the State
itself.

119. Then, too, it must be love of fatherland that

138 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

ve veins the State by placing before it a higher object
Chan the usual one of maintaining internal peace, property,
personal freedom, and the life and well-being of all.
/For this higher object alone, and with no other intention,
1 does the State assemble an armed force. When the
^question arises of making use of this, when the call comes
to stake everything that the State, in the narrow concep
tion of the word, sets before itself as object, viz., property,
personal freedom, life, and well-being, nay, even the
continued existence of the State itself ; when the call
comes to make an original decision with responsibility
to God alone, and without a clear and reasonable idea
that what is intended will surely be attained — for this
is never possible in such matters — then, and then only,
does there live at the helm of the State a truly original
and primary life, and at .this .point, and not before, the true
sovereign_rights of government enter, like God, to hazard
the lower life for the sake of the higher. In the main
tenance of the traditional constitution, the laws, and civil
prosperity there is absolutely no real true life and no
original decision. Conditions and circumstances, and
legislators perhaps long since dead, have created these
things ; succeeding ages go on faithfully in the paths
marked out, and so in fact they have no public life of
their own ; they merely repeat a life that once existed.
In such times there is no need of any real government.
But, when this regular course is endangered, and it is a
question of making decisions in new and unprecedented
cases, then there is need of a life that lives of itself. What
spirit is it that in such cases- may place itself at the helm,
that can make its own decisions with sureness and cer
tainty, untroubled by any hesitation ? What spirit, has an
undisputed right to summon and to order everyone con
cerned, whether he Him self be \viningr~or™not, and to

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 141

compel anyone who ..sists, to j^skjsyery thing includiri
his life ? Not the spirit of the peaceful citizen's lov
for the constitution and the Iaws,f1)u£ the devouring
flame of higher patriotism, which embraces the nation1
as the vesture of the eternal, for which the noble-minded
man joyfully sacrifices himself, and the ignoble man, who
only exists for the sake of the other, must likewise. sacri
fice himself. It is not that love of the citizen for the
constitution ; that love is quite unable to achieve this,
so long as it remains on the level of the understanding.
Whatever turn events may take, since it pays to govern
they will always have a ruler over them. Suppose the new
ruler even wants to introduce slavery (and what is slavery
if not the disregard for, and suppression of, the character
istic of an original people ? — but to that way of thinking
such qualities do not exist), suppose he wants to introduce
slavery. Then, since it is profitable to preserve the life
of slaves, to maintain their numbers and even their well-
being, slavery under him will turn out to be bearable if
he is anything of a calculator. Their life and their
keep, at any rate, they will always find. Then what is
there left that they should fight for ? 'After those two
things it is peace which they value more than anything.
But peace will only be disturbed by the continuance of
the struggle. They will, therefore, do anything just to
put an end to the fighting, and the sooner the better ;
they will submit, they will yield ; and why should they
not ? All they have ever been concerned about, and all
they have ever hoped from life, has been the continuation
of the habit of existing under tolerable conditions. The
promise of a life here on earth extending beyond the period
of life here on earth — that alone it is which can inspire
men even unto death for the fatherland.

1 20. So it has been hitherto. Wherever there has

/<^,/

142 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

been true government, wherever bitter struggles have
been endured, wherever victory has been won in the face
of mighty opposition, there it has been that promise of
eternal life which governed and struggled and won the
victory. Believing in that promise the German Pro
testants, already mentioned in these addresses, entered
upon the struggle. Do you think they did not know that
peoples could be governed by that old belief too, and held
together in law and order, and that under the old belief
men could procure a comfortable existence ? Why, then,
did their princes decide upon armed resistance, and why
did the peoples enthusiastically make such resistance ?
It was for heaven and for eternal bliss that they willingly
poured out their blood. But what earthly power could
have penetrated to the Holy of holies in their souls and
rooted out their belief—a belief which had been revealed
to them once for all, and on which alone they based their
rilope of bliss ? Thus it was not their own bliss for which
I they fought ; this was already assured to them ; it was
Lthe bliss of their children and of their grandchildren as
Lyet unborn and of all posterity as yet unborn. These,
too, should be brought up in that same doctrine, which
had appeared to them as the only means of salvation.
These, too, should partake of the salvation that had dawned
for them. This hope alone it was that was threatened
by the enemy. For it, for an order of things that long
after their death should blossom on their graves, they so
joyfully shed their blood. Let us admit that they were
not entirely clear in their own minds, that they made
mistakes in their choice of words to denote the noblest
that was in them, and with their lips did injustice to their
souls ; let us willingly confess that their confession of
faith was not the sole and exclusive means of becoming a
partaker of the heaven beyond the grave ; none the less

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 143

it is eternally true that more heaven on this side of the
grave, a braver and more joyful look from earth upwards,
and a freer stirring of the spirit have entered by their
sacrifice into the whole life of succeeding ages. To this
very day the descendants of their opponents, just as much
as we ourselves, their own descendants, enjoy the fruits
of their labours.

121. In this belief our earliest common forefathers,
the original stock of the new culture, the Germans, as
the Romans called them, bravely resisted the on-coming
world-dominion of the Romans. Did they not have/
before their eyes the greater brilliance of the Roman
provinces next to them and the more refined enjoyments
in those provinces, to say nothing of laws and judges'
seats and lictors' axes and rods in superfluity ? Were
not the Romans willing enough to let them share in all
these blessings ? v In the case of several of their own
princes, who did no more than intimate that war against
such benefactors of mankind was rebellion, did they not
experience proofs of the belauded Roman clemency ?
To those who submitted the Romans gave marks of
distinction in the form of kingly titles, high commands
in their armies, and Roman fillets ; and if they were
driven out by their countrymen, did not the Romans
provide for them a place of refuge and a means of sub
sistence in their colonies ? Had they no appreciation
of the advantages of Roman civilization, e.g., of the
superior organization of their armies, in which even an
Arminius did not disdain to learn the trade of war ?
They cannot be charged writh ignorance or lack of con
sideration of any one of these things. Their descendants,
as soon as they could do so without losing their freedom,
even assimilated Roman culture, so far as this was possible
without losing their individuality. Why, then, did they

144 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

fight for sever£l_^generatiQiLS-in bloody wars, that broke
out again and again with ever renewed force ? A Roman
writer puts the following expression into the mouth of
their leaders : " What was left for them to do, except to
maintain their freedom or else to die before they became
slaves." Freedomtothem meant^ just_thjs_:. remaining
Germans _and__contmuing to settle their own affairs
independently and in accordance with the original spirit
of their race, going on with their development in accord
ance with the same spirit, ancLpropagating this indepen
dence in their posterity. All those blessings which the
Romans offered them meant slavery to them, because then
they would have to become something that was not
German, they would have to become half Roman. They
assumed as a matter of course that every man would rather
die than become half a Roman, and^that a true German
could only want to live in order to be, and to remain, just
a German and to bring up his children as Germans!

They did not all die ; they did not see slavery ; they
bequeathed freedom to their ^children. It is" their
unyielding resistance which the whole modern world has
to thank for being what it now is. Had the Romans
succeeded in bringing them also under the yoke and in
destroying them as a nation, which the Roman did in
every case, the whole development of the human race
would have taken a different course, a course that one
cannot think would have been more satisfactory. It is
they whom we must thank — we, the immediate heirs of
their soil, their language, and their way of thinking —
I for being Germans still, for being still^borne along on
' the stream of original and independent life. It is they
whom we must thank for everything that we have been
as a nation since those days, and to them we shall be
indebted for everything that we shall be in the future,

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 145

unless things have come to an end with us now and the
last drop of blood inherited from them has dried up in
our veins. To them the other branches of the race,
whom we now look upon as foreigners, but who by descent
from them are our brothers, are indebted for their very
existence. When our ancestors triumphed over Roma the
eternal, not one of all these peoples was in existence, but
the possibility of their existence in the future was won for
them in the same fight.

122. These men, and all others of like mind in the^
history of the world, won the victory because eternity jl
inspired them, and this inspiration always does, and always u*
•must, defeat him who is not so inspired. It is neither the !
strong right arm nor the efficient weapon that winsj
victories, but only the power of the soul. He who sets
a limit to his sacrifices, and has no wish to venture beyond
a certain point, ceases to resist as soon as he finds himself in
danger at this point, even though it be one which is vital
to him and which ought not to be surrendered. He who
sets no limit whatever for himself, but on the contrary
stakes everything he has, including the most precious
possession granted to dwellers here below, namely, life
itself, never ceases to resist, and will undoubtedly win the
victory over an opponent whose goal is more limited.
A people that is capable of firmly beholding the counten
ance of that vision from the spiritual world, independence,
even though it be only its highest representatives and
leaders who are capable of perceiving it — a people capable
of being possessed by love of this vision, as our earliest
forefathers were, will undoubtedly win the victory over
a people that is used, as were the Roman armies, only as
the tool of foreign ambition to bring independent people
under the yoke ; for the former have everything to lose,
and the latter merely something to gain. But the way

10

146 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

of thinking which regards war as a game of chance, where
the stakes are temporal gain or loss, and which fixes the
amount to be staked on the cards even before it begins
the game — such a way of thinking is defeated even by a
whim. Think, for example, of a Mahomet — not the
Mahomet of history, about whom I confess I have no
opinion, but the Mahomet of a well-known French poet.1
He takes it firmly into his head once for all that he is one
of those exceptional beings who are called to lead the
obscure and common folk of the earth, and in accordance
with this preliminary assumption all his notions, no matter
how mean and limited they may be in reality, of necessity
seem to him, just because they are his own, great and sub
lime ideas full of blessings for mankind ; all who set
themselves against these notions seem to him obscure and
common people, enemies of their own good, evil-minded,
and hateful. Then, in order to justify this conceit of
himself as a divine call, he lets this thought absorb his
whole life ; he must stake everything on it, and cannot
rest until he has trodden underfoot all who refuse to
think as highly of him as he does of himself, and until he
sees his own belief in his divine mission reflected in the
whole contemporary world. I will not say what would
happen to him if a spiritual vision, true and clear to itself,
entered the lists against him, but he is sure to be victorious
over those gamesters with limited stakes, for he stakes
everything against them and they do not stake everything.
No spirit drives them, but he is driven by a spirit, though
it be but a raving one, the violent and powerful spirit of
his own conceit.

123. From all this it follows that the State, merely as
the government of human life in its progress along the
ordinary peaceful path, is not something which is primary
1 [The reference is apparently to Voltaire's tragedy Mahomet.]

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 147

*•

and which exists for its_own_sake, but is. merely the means
to the higher £u££ose__o£_the eternal, regular, and con
tinuous development of what is purely human in this
nation. It follows, too, that the vision and the love of
this eternal development, and nothing else, should have
the higher supervision of State administration at all
times, not excluding periodToFpeace, and that this alone
is able to save the people's independence when it is
endangered. In the case of the Germans, among whom
as an original people this love of fatherland was possible
and, as we firmly believe, did actually exist up to the
present time, it has been able up to now to reckon with
great confidence on the security of what was most vital
to it. As was the case with the ancient Greeks alone,
with^jtheJj€^mans-jJie_S^tate and the nation were actually
separated from each other, and each was represented for /
itself, the former in the ^separate German ^realms and
principalities, the Ijttej^represejLted^jvisibly^in thejmperial
connection aml^nvmbly — by virtue of a law, not
written, but living and valid in the minds of all, a law
whose results struck the eye everywhere — in a mass of
customs_and institutions. Wherever the German language
was ^ spoken, everyone who had first seen the light of day
in its domain could consider himself as in a double sense
a citizen, on the one hand, of the State where he was born
and to whose care he was in the first instance commended,
and, on the other hand, of the whole Gomrnpn fatherland
of ^ tVi e. Qgrjn EH.. jTajj nru To everyone it was permitted
to seek out for himself in the whole length and breadth
of this fatherland the culture most congenial to him or
the sphere of action to which his spirit was best adapted ;
and talent did not root itself like a tree in the place
where it first grew up, but was allowed to seek out its
own place. Anyone who, because of the turn taken by

148 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

his own development, became out of harmony with his
immediate environment, easily found a willing reception
elsewhere, found new friends in place of those he had
lost, found time and leisure to make his meaning plainer
and perhaps to win over and to reconcile even those who
were offended with him, and so to unite the whole. No
German-born prince ever took upon himself to mark
out for his subjects as their fatherland, with mountains
or rivers as boundaries, the territory over which he
ruled, and to regard his subjects as bound to the soil.
A truth not permitted to find expression in one place
might find expression in another, where it might happen
that those truths were forbidden which were permitted
in the first. So, in spite of the many instances of one-
sidedness and narrowness of heart in the separate States,
there was nevertheless in Germany, considered as a whole,
the greatest freedom of investigation and publication that
any people has ever possessed. Everywhere the higher
culture was, and continued to be, the result of the inter-
Action of the citizens of all German States : and then this
higher culture gradually worked its way down in this
•form to the people at large, which thus never ceased,
, broadly speaking, to educate itself by itself. This
essential security for the continuance of a German nation
was, as we have said, not impaired by any man of German
spirit seated at the helm of government ; and though
with respect to other original decisions things may not
always have happened as the higher German love of
fatherland could not but wish, at any rate there has been
no act in direct , opposition to its interests; there has
been no attempt to undermine that love or to extirpate
it and put a love of the opposite kind in its place.

124. But what if the original guidance of that higher
culture, as well as of the national power which may not

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 149

be used except to serve that culture and its continuance,
the utilization of German property and blood — what if
this should pass from the control of the German spirit
to that of another ? What would then be the inevitable
results ?

This is the place where there is special need of the
disposition which we invoked in our first address — the
disposition not to deceive ourselves wilfully about our
own affairs, and the courage to be willing to behold the
truth and confess it to ourselves. Moreover, it is still
permitted to us, so far as I know, to speak to each other
in the German language about the fatherland, or at
least to sigh over it, and, in my opinion, we should not
do well if we anticipated of our own accord such a pro
hibition, or if we were ready to restrain our courage,
which without doubt will already have taken counsel
with itself as to the risk to be run, with the chains forged
by the timidity of some individuals.

Picture to yourselves, then, the new power, which we
are presupposing, as well-disposed and as benevolent as
ever you may wish ; make it as good as God Himself ;
will you be able to impart to it divine understanding as
well ? Even though it wish in all earnestness the greatest
happiness and well-being of everyone, do you suppose
that the greatest well-being it is able to conceive will be
the same thing as German well-being ? In regard to
the main point which I have put before you to-day, I
hope I have been thoroughly well understood by you ;
I hope that several, while they listened to me, thought
and felt that I was only expressing in plain words what
has always lain in their minds ; I hope that the other
Germans who will some day read this will have the same
feeling — indeed, several Germans have said practically
the same thing before I did, and the unconscious basis of

150 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

the resistance tjiat has been repeatedly manifested to a
purely mechanical constitution and policy of the State
has been the view of things which I have presented to you.
Now, I challenge all those who are acquainted with the
modern literature of foreign countries to show me one
of their poets or legislators who in recent times has ever
betrayed a glimmering of anything similar to the view
that regards the human race as eternally progressing, and
that refers all its activities in this world solely to this
eternal progress. Even in the period of their boldest
flights of political creation, was there a single one who
demanded more from the State than the abolition of
inequalities, the maintenance of peace within their
borders and of national reputation without, or, in the
extremest case, domestic bliss ? If, as we must conclude
from all these indications, this is their highest good, they
will not attribute to us any higher needs or any higher
demands on life. Assuming they always display that
beneficent disposition towards us and are free from any
selfishness or desire to be greater than we are, they will
think they have provided splendidly for us if we are given
everything that they themselves know to be desirable.
But the thing for which alone the nobler men among
us wish to live is then blotted out of public life ; and as
soon as the people, which has always shown itself responsive
to the stirrings of the noble mind and which we were
entitled to hope might be elevated in a body to that
nobility, is treated as those to whom we are referring
want to be treated, it is degraded and dishonoured, and,
by its confluence with a people of a lower species, it is
blotted out of the universe.

125. But he, in whom those higher demands on life
remain alive and powerful and who has a feeling that
their right is divine, feels himself set back, much against

PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 151

his will, into those early days of Christianity, when it was
said : " Resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee
on the right cheek, turn to him the other also ; and if
any man will take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke
also." The latter is well said, for, so long as he sees that
thou still hast a cloke, he seeks to pick a quarrel with thee
so as to take this from thee also, and only when thou art
quite naked wilt thou escape his attention and be left
in peace. To such a man the earth becomes a hell and
a place of horror, just because of his higher mind, which
does him honour. He wishes he had never been born ;
he wishes that his eyes may be closed to the light of day,
and the sooner the better ; his days are filled with ever
lasting sorrow until he descends to the grave, and for those
whom he loves he can wish no greater boon than a dull
and contented mind, so that with less suffering they may
live for an eternal life beyond the grave.

These addresses lay before you the sole remaining means,
now that the others have been tried in vain, of preventing
this annihihl^njDfey^ may break out

among us in the future, and of preventing this degradation
of our whole nation. They propose that you establish
deeply and indelibly in the hearts of all, by means of
education, the true and all-powerful love of fatherland,
the conception of our people as an eternal people and
as the security for our own eternity. What kind of
education can do this, and how it is to be done, we shall
see in the following addresses.

NINTH ADDRESS

THE STARTING-POINT THAT ACTUALLY EXISTS FOR THE
NEW NATIONAL EDUCATION OF THE GERMANS

126. IN our last address several proofs that had been
promised in the first address were given and completed.
The present problem, the first task, we said, is simply
to preserve the existence and continuance of what is
German. All other differences vanished, we said, before
the higher point of view, and thereby no harm would
happen to the special obligations under which anyone
might consider himself to be. If only we keep in mind
the distinction that has been drawn between State and
nation, it is clear that even in the past it was not possible
for their interests ever to come into conflict. Besides, the
higher love of fatherland, love for the whole people of the
German nation, had to reign supreme, and rightly so, in
each particular German State. Not one of them could,
indeed, lose sight of this higher interest without alienating
everything noble and good, and so hastening its own down
fall. The more, therefore, anyone was affected and
animated by that higher interest, the better citizen also
he was for the particular German State, in which his
immediate sphere of action lay. German States might
quarrel among themselves about particular established
privileges. Anyone who wished for the continuance of
the established state of affairs, and this must undoubtedly

152

STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 153

have been the wish of every sensible person for the sake
of the more remote consequences, must have d lired
right to prevail, no matter on what side it might be.
A particular German State could, at most, have airied at
uniting the whole German nation under its sway, and at
introducing autocracy in place of the established republic
of peoples. Suppose, as I for instance of cour^ - maintain,
that it is just this republican constitution that has hitherto
been the best source of German civilization and the chief
guarantee of its individuality. Then, if the unity of
government which we are presupposing had itself borne,
not the republican, but the monarchical form, under
which it would have been possible for the autocrat to
nip in the bud for his lifetime any new branch of original
culture throughout the whole German soil — if my sup
position is true, I say, it would certainly have been a
great disaster for the cause of German love of fatherland,
if that plan had succeeded, and every man of noble mind
throughout the whole length and breadth of the common
soil would have been bound to resist it. Yet, even in
this most unfortunate event, it would always have been
Germans who ruled over Germans and were the original
directors of their affairs. Even if for a short period the
characteristic German spirit had been lacking, there would
still have remained the hope that it would awake again,
and every stout heart throughout the whole country
could have expected to get a hearing and to make
itself intelligible. A German nation would always have
remained in existence and have ruled itself, and would
not have sunk into an existence of a lower order.- Here
the essential point in our calculation is always that German
national love itself either is at the helm of the German
State or can reach it with its influence. But if, according
to our previous supposition, the control of the German

154 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

State — whether now that State appear as one or as
seve* il does not matter ; in reality it is one — dropped
front German into foreign hands, it is certain — for the
oppobfte would be contrary to all nature and utterly
impossible — it is certain, I say, that from that moment
onwards no longer German, but foreign interests would
decide. V7hereas formerly the united national interest
of the Germans had its place and was represented at
the helm of the State, it would now be banished. Now,
if it is not to be completely destroyed from off the earth,
another place of refuge must be prepared for it, and that
in what alone remains, with the governed, among the
citizens. If it already existed in the majority of them,
we should not have got into the plight which we are now
' I considering ; therefore, it does not exist in them, and must
(first of all be instilled in them. In other words, the
majority of the citizens must be educated to this sense
pf fatherland, and, in order that one may be sure of the
majority, this education must be tried on all. So with
this it is now plainly and clearly proved, as was likewise
^formerly promised, that education is the only possible
Imeans of saving German independence. Undoubtedly
it will not be our fault if anyone has not even yet been
able to grasp the true content and the purpose of these
addresses, and the sense in which all our statements are
to be taken.

127. To put it more briefly. According to our sup
position, those who need protection are deprived of the
guardianship of their parents and relatives, whose place
has been taken by masters. If they are not to become
absolute slaves, they must be released from guardianship,
and the first step in this direction is to educate them to
manhood. German love of fatherland has lost its place ;
it shall get another, a wider and deeper one ; there in

STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 155

peace and obscurity it shall establish itself and harden itself
like steel, and at the right moment break forth in youthful
strength and restore to the State its lost independence.
Now, in regard to this restoration foreigners, and also
those among us who have petty and narrow minds and
despairing hearts, need not be alarmed ; one can console
them with the assurance that not one of them will live
to see it, and that the age which will live to see it will
think otherwise than they.

128. Now whether this proof, closely though its parts
hang together, will affect others and stimulate them to
activity, depends first of all upon whether there is such
a thing as the German individuality and German love
of fatherland which we have described, and whether it
is worth preserving and striving after or not. That the
foreigner, abroad or at home, denies this may be taken
for granted ; but his advice is not asked for. Besides,
it is to be noted here that the deciding of this question
does not depend at all upon proof by conceptions ;
these can certainly make us clear in this matter, but can
give no information about real existence or value, which
can be proved only by the immediate experience of each
individual. In a case like this, though millions may say
that it does not exist, that can never mean more than that
it does not exist in them ; by no means, however, that
it does not exist at all ; and if a single person rises against
these millions and declares that it does exist, he carries
his point against them all. Nothing prevents me, as
I now speak, from being in the given case that one person
who asserts that he knows from immediate experience
that there is such a thing as German love of fatherland,
that he knows the infinite value of its object, that this
love alone has driven him, in spite of every danger, to
say what he has said and will still say, since nothing else

156 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

is left to us now but speech, and even it is checked and
restrained in every way. Whoever feels this within him
will be convinced ; whoever does not feel it cannot be
convinced, for my proof rests entirely on that supposition ;
on him my words are lost ; but who would not stake
something so insignificant as words ?

129. That definite education, from which we expect
the salvation of the German nation, has been described
in general terms in our second and third addresses. We
described it as a complete regeneration of the human race,
and it will be appropriate to link up with this description
a repetition of the general survey.

130. As a rule, the world of the senses was formerly
accepted as the only true and really existing world ; it
was the first that was brought before the pupil in educa
tion. From it alone was he led on to thought and, for
the most part, to thought that was about it and in its
service. The new education exactly reverses this order.
For it the world that is comprehended by thought is
the only true and really existing world, and into this it
wishes to introduce the pupil from the very beginning.
It is only to this world of the spirit that it wishes to link
his whole love and his whole pleasure, so that with him
there will inevitably begin and develop a life in it alone.
Formerly there lived in the majority naught but flesh,
matter, and nature ; through the new education spirit
alone shall live in the majority, yea, very soon in all,
and spur them on ; the stable and certain spirit, which
was mentioned before as the only possible foundation
of a well-organized State, shall be produced everywhere.

131. Such an education undoubtedly achieves the
object which we have specially set before us and from
which our addresses started. That spirit which is to
be produced includes the higher love of fatherland, the

STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 157

conception of its earthly life as eternal and of the father
land as the support of that eternity. If it is produced in
the Germans, it will include love of the German father
land as one of its essential elements, and from that love
there spring of themselves the courageous defender of
his country and the peaceful and honest citizen. Such
an education, indeed, achieves even more than that
immediate object ; that is always the case when thorough
going measures are willed for a great purpose ; the whole
man is inwardly perfected and completed in every part,
and outwardly equipped with perfect fitness for all
his purposes in time and eternity. Spiritual nature has
inseparably connected our complete cure from all the
evils that oppress us with our recovery as a nation and
fatherland.

132. We have nothing more to do here with the
stupid surprise of some, when we assert such a world of
pure thought, and assert it, indeed, as the only possible
world, and reject the world of sense ; nor have we anything
more to do with those who deny the former world
altogether, or deny only the possibility that the majority
of the people at large can be brought into it. We have
already completely rejected these things. He who does
not yet know that there is a world of thought can
instruct himself meanwhile about it elsewhere by the
available means ; we have no time for that instruction
here. But we do intend just this ; to show how even
the majority of the people at large can be raised into
that world.

133. Now, in our deliberate opinion the idea of such
a new education is not to ' be considered as simply a
picture set up for the exercise of ingenuity of mind or of
skill in argument, but is rather to be put into practice
at once and introduced into life. Our task, therefore,

158 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

is first of all to point out what already exists in the actual
world with which the realization of this should be con
nected.

We give this answer to the question : it ought to be
connected with the system of instruction invented and
proposed by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and already
successfully practised under his eyes. We intend to
give good reasons for this decision of ours and to define it
clearly.

First of all, we have read and reflected over the man's
own writings, from which we have formed our conception
of his art of instruction and education. We have taken
no notice of the reports and opinions of the current
literary periodicals, nor of their further opinions upon
those opinions. We observe this in order to recommend
this method and the complete avoidance of its opposite
to everyone who wishes likewise to have a conception of
this subject. Similarly, up to the present we have not
desired to see anything of it in actual practice ; not from
disrespect, but because we wanted first to provide our
selves with a definite and clear conception of the inventor's
true intention. The application may often fall short of
the intention, but from that conception the conception
of the application and of the inevitable result follows
without any experiment, and, equipped with this alone,
one can truly understand the application and judge it
correctly. If, as some believe, even this system of
instruction has already degenerated here and there into
blind, empirical groping and into empty play and show,
for that the author's fundamental conception, at least,
is in my opinion quite blameless.

134. Now this fundamental conception is warranted
for me, first of all by the individuality of the man himself,
as he shows it in his writings with the truest and most

STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 159

hearty frankness. I could have used him, just as well as
I used Luther or as I might use anyone else if there
have been others like them, to demonstrate the char
acteristics of the German spirit and to give the gratifying
proof that this spirit, in all its miraculous power, reigned
down to the present day within the range of the German
tongue. He, also, has spent a laborious life struggling
with every possible obstacle ; within, with his own
stubborn obscurity and awkwardness and his very scanty
supply of the most ordinary aids to scholarly education ;
without, with continual misunderstanding. Towards an
end, which he simply surmised and which was quite
unknown to him, he has struggled, upheld and stimulated
by an unconquerable and all-powerful and German
impulse, a love of the poor neglected people. As in the
case of Luther, only in another connection and one more
in keeping with his age, this all-powerful love had made
him its instrument and had become the life of his life.
It was the unknown but definite and unchanging guide
which led his life through the all-enveloping night, and,
because it was impossible for such a love to leave the earth
unrewarded, crowned its evening with his truly spiritual
invention, which achieved far more than he had ever
longed for in his boldest wishes. He wished simply to
help the people ; but his invention, when developed to
the full, raises the people, removes every difference
between them and an educated class, provides national
education instead of the desired popular education, and
might, indeed, have the power of helping peoples and the
whole human race to rise from the depths of their present
misery.

135. This fundamental conception of his appears in
his writings with complete clearness and unmistakable
precision. First of all, in regard to the form, he desires,

160 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

not the caprice and blind groping that has hitherto
existed, but a definite and deliberate art of education ;
that is what we, too, wish and what German thoroughness
must necessarily wish. He relates 1 very frankly how a
French phrase, that he wanted to make education mecha
nical, made his mind clear concerning this aim of his.
In regard to the content, the first step in the new educa
tion described by me is that it shall stimulate and train
the free activity of the pupil's mind, his thought, in which
later the world of his love shall dawn for him. With
this first step Pestalozzi's writings deal excellently ;
our examination of his fundamental conception treats
this subject first of all. In this regard his censure of
the previous system of instruction, that it has only
plunged the pupil in mist and shadow and has never let
him reach actual truth and reality, agrees with ours,
that this system has never been able to influence life, nor
to form the root of life. Pestalozzi's proposed remedy
for this, to lead the pupil to direct perception, is synony
mous with ours, to stimulate his mental activity to the
creation of images and to let him learn everything just
by this free formation ; for perception of what has been
freely created is the only possible perception. The
application, to be mentioned later, proves that the
inventor really means this, and does not understand by
perception that blindly groping and fumbling sense-
impression. Quite rightly, too, this general and very far-
reaching law is laid down for the stimulation of the pupil's
perception by education : from the beginning keep pace
exactly with the evolution of the child's powers that are
to be developed.

136. On the other hand, in Pestalozzi's system of
instruction all the mistakes in terms and proposals have
1 [See De Guimps,Life of Pestalozzi, Sonnenschein & Co., 1903, p. 183.]

STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 161

one common source, the confusion and opposition of
two things ; on one side, the paltry and limited end
originally aimed at, namely, to lend such aid as is abso
lutely necessary to those children from among the people
who are the most neglected, on the supposition that the
whole people will remain as it is ; and on the other side,
the means leading to a far higher end. One is saved from
all error and obtains a completely consistent conception
by dropping the former and everything that results from
its consideration, and keeping only to the latter and carry
ing it out consistently. Undoubtedly it was solely the
desire to release from school as soon as possible the very
poorest children for bread-winning, and yet to provide
them with a means of making up for the interrupted
instruction, that gave rise in Pestalozzi's loving heart to
the over-estimation of reading and writing, to the setting
up of these as almost the aim and climax of popular
education, and to his simple belief in the testimony of
past centuries, that this is the best aid to instruction. For
otherwise he would have found that reading and writing
have been hitherto just the very instruments for envelop
ing men in mist and shadow and for making them con
ceited. That same desire of his is undoubtedly the source
of several other proposals that are in contradiction to his
priru:ipla^ol_direct: perception, and especially his utterly
false notion of language as a means of raising our race
from dim perception to clear ideas. For our part, we
have not spoken of the education of the people in opposi
tion to that of the higher classes, because we no longer
want to have the word " people " used in the sense of
vulgar common populace, nor can German national
interests tolerate this sense of the word any longer ; but
we have spoken of national education. If it shall ever

come to this, the miserable wish that education shall

ii

162 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

be finished very soon and the child again set to work
must not be breathed any longer, but given up right at
the beginning of the consideration of this matter. In
my opinion, indeed, this education will not be expensive,
the institutions will be able to maintain themselves to
a great extent, and work will not suffer. I shall state my
thoughts about this in due course ; but even if it were not
so, the pupil must unconditionally, and at any cost, remain
until education is and can be finished. That half-
education is not a bit better than none at all ; it leaves
matters as they were ; and if anyone desires this, he had
better dispense also with the half and declare plainly at
the very beginning that he does not want mankind to be
helped. Now, assuming that the pupil is to remain until
education is finished, reading and writing can be of no
use in the purely national education, so long as this
education continues. But it can, indeed, be very harm-
Vul ; because, as it has hitherto so often done, it may easily
Jjead the pupil astray from direct perception to mere
signs, and from attention, which knows that it grasps
nothing if it does not grasp it now and here, to distrac
tion, which consoles itself by writing things down and
wants to learn some day from paper what it will probably
never learn, and, in general, to the dreaming which so
often accompanies dealings with the letters of the alphabet.
Not until the very end of education, and as its last gift
for the journey, should these arts be imparted and the
pupil led by analysis of the language, of which he has been
completely master for a long time, to discover and use
the letters. After the rest of the training he has already
acquired, this would be play.

137. So much for the purely universal national educa
tion. It is a different matter with the future scholar.
Some day he shall not only express his feelings about what is

STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 163

universally valid, but also by solitary reflection lift up into
the light of language the hidden and real depths of his
heart, of which he is unconscious. He must, therefore, get
into his hands sooner, in the form of writing, the instru
ment of this solitary yet audible thought, and learn to
create ; yet even in his case there will be less need of
haste than there has been in the past. This will become
distinctly clearer in due course, when we distinguish
between purely national and scholarly education.

138. Everything that Pestalozzi says about sound and
word as means for the development of mental power is to
be corrected and limited in accordance with this view.
The scope of these addresses does not permit me to go
into details. I make, however, just the following remark
which profoundly affects the whole matter. His book
for mothers contains the foundation of his development
of all knowledge ; for, among other things, he relies very
much on home education. First of all, so far as this
home education itself is concerned, we have certainly
no desire to quarrel with him over the hopes that he
forms of mothers. But, so far as our higher conception
of a national education is concerned, we are firmly con
vinced that, especially among the working classes, it
cannot be either begun, continued, or ended in the parents'
house, nor, indeed, without the complete separation of
the children from them. The hardship, the daily anxiety
about making ends meet, the petty meanness and avarice,
which occur here, would inevitably infect the children,
drag them down, and prevent them from making a free
flight into the world of thought. This also is one of the
absolute and indispensable conditions for the realization
of our scheme. We have seen enough of what will happen
if mankind as a whole repeats itself in each successive
generation as it was in the previous one. If its complete

1 64 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

reformation is intended, it must once for all be entirely
separated from itself and cut off altogether from its old
life. Not until a generation has passed through the new
education can the question be considered, as to what
part of the national education shall be entrusted to
the home.

1 39. Setting that aside, and considering Pestalozzi's book
for mothers simply as the first foundation of instruction ;
to take, as the book does, the child's body as the subject
of instruction is also a complete mistake. He starts with
the very correct statement, that the first object of the
child's knowledge must be the child himself. But is the
child's body, then, the child himself? If it must be a
human body, would not the mother's body be far closer
and more visible to him ? And how can the child
obtain a perceptual knowledge of his body, without first
having learnt to use it ? That information is not know
ledge, but simply the learning by heart of arbitrary
word-symbols, brought about by the over-estimation
of speaking. The true foundation of instruction and
knowledge wrould be, to use Pestalozzi's language, an
A B C of the sensations. When the child begins to
understand, and imperfectly to make, speech sounds, he
should be led to make himself quite clear, whether he is
hungry or sleepy, whether he sees or hears the actual
sensation denoted by this or that expression, or, indeed,
simply imagines it. He should be clear, too, as to the
differences and degrees of difference of the various
impressions on the same sense that are denoted by special
words, e.g., the colours and the sounds of different bodies,
etc. All this should take place in succession, developing
properly and regularly the power of sensation. By this
means the child first obtains an ego, which he abstracts in
free and conscious conception, and which he scrutinizes

STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 165

by its aid ; as soon as it awakes to life, a mental eye is
set in life, and from that time onward never leaves it.
Thus, also, measure and number, in themselves empty
forms, obtain for the succeeding exercises of perception
their clearly recognized inner content which, according
to Pestalozzi's method, can be given them only by
obscure tendency and compulsion. In Pestalozzi's writ
ings a confession, which is remarkable from this point of
view, is made by one of his teachers who, when initiated
into this method, began to perceive only empty geometrical
bodies. This would happen to all pupils of that method
if spiritual nature did not, unnoticed, guard against it.
It is at this stage, too, when what is really perceived is
thus clearly grasped, that not language signs, indeed, but
speech itself and the need for expressing oneself to others
trains man, and raises him out of darkness and confusion
to clearness and definiteness. When the child first awakes
to consciousness, all the impressions of surrounding
nature immediately crowd upon him and are mingled
to a vague chaos, in which no single thing stands out from
among the general confusion. How is he ever to emerge
from this stage of vagueness ? He needs the help of
others ; he cannot get it except by definitely expressing
his need and distinguishing it from similar needs which
are already denoted in the language. Under the guidance
of those distinctions he is compelled to reflect and to
collect his thoughts, to notice what he actually feels, to
compare it with, and differentiate it from, something else
which he already knows but does not at present feel.
Thus a conscious and free ego begins to be separated off
in him. Now, education ought with deliberate and free
art to continue the course which necessity and nature
begin with us.

140. In the field of objective knowledge, which is

1 66 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

concerned with external objects, acquaintance with
the word-sign adds absolutely nothing to the clearness
and definiteness of the inner knowledge for the knower
himself, but simply brings it within the sphere of what
can be communicated to others, which is an altogether
different sphere. The clearness of that knowledge
depends entirely on perception, and whatever man's
imagination can create again at will in all its parts, just
as it really is, is fully known, whether one has a word for
it or not. Indeed, we are convinced that this perfection
of the perception should precede acquaintance with the
word-symbol. The opposite process leads straight to
that world of shadow and mist, and to premature loqua
city, both of which are rightly so hateful to Pestalozzi.
He who wants to know the word as soon as possible, and
considers his knowledge increased as soon as he knows it,
lives in that very world of mist and is anxious merely to
extend it. Considering Pestalozzi's system of thought as
a whole, I believe that it was just this A B C of sensation
that he aimed at as the first foundation of mental develop
ment and as the content of his book for mothers. In all
his statements about language he had a dim notion of
it, and it was only lack of training in philosophy that
prevented him from becoming quite clear on this point.

141. Now, presupposing this development of the
knowing subject by means of sensation and setting it as the
first foundation of the national education we have in
view, Pestalozzi's A B C of sense-perception, the theory
of the relations of number and measure, is the entirely
appropriate and excellent consequence. With this per
ception any part of the world of sense can be connected ;
it can be introduced into the domain of mathematics,
until the pupil is sufficiently trained by these preliminary
exercises to be led on to the planning of a social order of

STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 167

mankind and to love of that order. This is the second
and essential step in his training.

142. But in the first part of education another subject,
which is also mentioned by Pestalozzi, is not to be over
looked ; the development of the pupil's bodily powers,
which must necessarily go hand in hand with those of
the mind. He demands an A B C of Art, i.e., of the
bodily powers. His most striking statements about this
are the following : l " Striking, carrying, throwing,
pushing, pulling, turning, struggling, swinging, etc., are
the simplest exercises of strength. There is a natural
sequence in these exercises from the beginnings to the
perfect art, i.e., to the highest stage of the nerve rhythm,
which ensures blow and push, swing and throw, in a
hundred different ways, and makes hand and foot certain."
In this, everything depends on the natural sequence,
and it is not enough that we should interfere in a blind
arbitrary way and introduce any kind of exercise, just
in order that it may be said of us that we too, like the
Greeks perhaps, have physical education. Now, everything
still remains to be done in this matter, for Pestalozzi has
supplied no A B C of Art. This must first of all be sup
plied, and that certainly requires a man who is versed
in the anatomy of the human body and also in scientific
mechanics, and who combines with this knowledge a
high degree of philosophical spirit. Such a man will be
capable of discovering in all-round perfection that machine
which the human body is designed to be, and of showing
how this machine may gradually be developed out of
every healthy human body, so that every advance occurs

1 [An almost exact quotation from Pestalozzi's Wie Gertrud ihre
Kinder lehrt ; cf. Pestalozzi's Ausgewaehlte Schriften, ed. F. Mann, Langen-
salza, vol. iii, p. 275, and see translation by Cooke, Sonnenschein & Co.,
1907, pp. 177, 178.]

1 68 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

in the only possible correct sequence, thus preparing for
and facilitating those that follow. Thereby the health
and beauty of the body and the strength of the mind
are not only not endangered, but are even confirmed and
increased. It is obvious without further mention how
indispensable this element is to an education which pro
mises to train the whole man and is especially intended for
a nation which shall restore again, and in the future
maintain, its independence.

We reserve for the next address what there is still to
say by way of further definition of our conception of
German national education.

TENTH ADDRESS

FURTHER DEFINITION OF THE GERMAN NATIONAL
EDUCATION

143. THE training of the pupil to make clear to himself
first his sensations and then his perceptions, which must
be accompanied by a systematic art of training his body,
is the first part of the new German national education.
In regard to the education of perception, we have a
suitable method from Pestalozzi. A method for the
education of the power of sensation is still lacking, but
he and his collaborators, who have been summoned
chiefly to solve this problem, will be able to furnish this
easily. A method for the systematic development of
physical strength is still lacking. What is required for
the solution of this problem has been indicated, and it
is to be hoped that, if the nation should show any eager
ness for this solution, it will be found. All this part of
education is but a means and a preliminary exercise for
the second essential part, the civic and religious education.)
The general remarks that it is necessary at present to make
about this have already been mentioned in our second and
third addresses, and we have nothing to add to them.
It is the business of that philosophy which proposes a
German national education to furnish definite instruc
tions for the art of this education — always, of course,
taking into consideration and consultation Pestalozzi's own

169

ijo ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

art of education. Once the need for such instructions
arises, through the first part being fully carried out, that
philosophy will not be slow to supply it. Every pupil,
even if born in the lowest class — for, in truth, the class
into which children are born makes no difference to their
talents — will grasp, and indeed grasp easily, the instruction
in those subjects. Such instruction, indeed, comprises,
if you like, the most profound metaphysics and is the result
of the most abstract speculation, and those subjects at
present even scholars and speculating brains find it
impossible to grasp. Let no one grow weary just now,
wondering how this may be possible ; experience will
teach this later, if only we will obey in regard to the first
steps. It is only because our generation is held captive
in the world of empty ideas and has not entered the world
of true reality and perception at any point, that it is not to
be expected that this generation should begin perception
with the highest and most spiritual perception of all,
and when it is already clever beyond measure. Philo
sophy must require it to give up its present world and to
provide itself with an entirely different one. It is no
wonder if such a demand proves unavailing. But, from
the very beginning, the pupil of our education has been
at home in the world of perception and has never seen
any other. He has not to change, but only to strengthen,
his world ; and this takes place of itself. This education
is, as we have already pointed out, the only possible
education for philosophy and also the sole means of
making philosophy universal.

144. Education ends with this civic and religious
instruction, and the pupil is now to be released. Thus
we are clear at any rate in regard to the content of the
proposed education.

145. The pupil's faculty of knowledge must never be

NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 171

stimulated without love for the known object being f
stimulated at_jJhje_-same— time, for otherwise knowledge •
remains dead ; similarly, love must never be stimulated
without becoming clear to knowledge, for otherwise love
remains blind. This is one of the chief principles of our
proposed education, with which Pestalozzi also must
agree, since it is in accordance with his whole system of
thought. Now, the stimulation and development of this
love is connected with the systematic course of instruction
by means of sensation and perception, and arises without
our design or assistance. The child has a natural inclina
tion for clearness and order. This is continually satisfied
in that course of instruction, and so fills the child with
joy and pleasure. But, while in this state of satisfaction,
he is stimulated again by the new obscurities that now
appear, and so he is satisfied anew. Thus life is passed
in love of and pleasure in learning. It is this love by
means of which each individual is connected with the
world of ^thought ; it is th.e..bQnd_Df_JJie__ .sensuous and_
spiritual worlds. This love renders possible the easy
develop menTof the faculty of knowledge and the success
ful cultivation of the fields of science ; a result that is
certain and premeditated in this education, but which
was formerly attained by chance in the case of a few
specially favoured persons.

146. But there is yet another love, that which binds
man to man and combines all individuals into one rational •
community with the same disposition. The first kind
of love fashions knowledge ; this other kind fashions the
life of action and stimulates people to show forth in them
selves and in others that which has become part of their
knowledge. Since for our special purpose it would be of
little use simply to improve the scholar's education, and
since the national education intended by us aims first of

172 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

all at training not scholars but simply men, it is clear that,
in addition to that first love, the development of the
second is also an essential duty of this education.

Pestalozzi speaks of this subject with soul-stirring
enthusiasm. Yet we must confess that his statements
did not seem at all clear to us, and, least of all, so clear
that they could serve as the foundation for an art of
developing that love. It is therefore necessary for us to
state our own thoughts concerning such a foundation.

147. The usual assumption, that man is by nature

selfish, that the child also is born with this selfishness, and

that it is education alone which implants in him a moral

motive, is founded on very superficial observation, and

is utterly false. Nothing can be created from nothing,

and the development of a fundamental instinct, no matter

to what extent, can never make it the opposite of itself.

How then could education ever implant morality in the

child, if morality did not exist in him originally and before

all education ? It does, therefore, actually exist in all

V human children that are born into the world ; the task

I is simply to find out the purest and most primitive form

' in which it appears.

-'148. "The results of speculative thought, as well as
common observation, agree that the purest and most
primitive form of morality is the instinct for respect,
and that from this instinct there arises our knowledge of
what is moral as the only possible object of respect, the
right, the good, veracity, and the power of self-control.
In the child this instinct appears first of all as the desire
to be respected by those who inspire in him the highest
respect. This instinct goes to prove with certainty that
love does not arise from selfishness at all, because it is
directed as a rule far more strongly and decisively towards
the sterner parent, the father, who is more often absent,

NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 173

and who does not appear directly as a benefactor, than
towards the mother, who with her beneficence is ever
present. The child wants to be noticed by him, wants
to have his approval ; only in so far as the father is satis
fied with him is he satisfied with himself. This is the
natural love of the child for the father, not as the guardian
of his sensuous well-being, but as the mirror, from which
his own worth or worthlessness is reflected for him.
Now, the father himself can easily connect with this love
obedience and every kind of self-denial ; for the reward
of his hearty approval the child obeys with joy. Then
again, this is the love which the child longs for from the
father ; that he shall notice the child's effort to be good,
and acknowledge it ; that he shall show that it gives him
joy when he can approve, and grieves him heartily when
he must disapprove ; that he desires nothing more than
always to be able to be satisfied with him, and all his
demands on the child have simply the intention of making
him ever better and more worthy of respect. Again, the
sight of this love continually animates and strengthens the
child's love, and gives him new strength for all his further
efforts. On the other hand, that love is killed by being
disregarded, and by continual unjust misunderstanding ;
in particular, it produces even hate, if in dealing with the
child one allows selfishness to appear, and, e.g., treats as
a capital crime some damage caused by his carelessness.
He then sees himself regarded as a mere tool, and this
outrages his feeling that he must himself be of worth,
a feeling that is dim, indeed, but yet not absent.

149. To prove this by an example. What is it that
with the child adds shame to the pain of chastisement,
and what is this shame ? Obviously it is the feeling of
self-contempt, which is an inevitable accompaniment
when the displeasure of his parents and educators is shown

174 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

to him. Therefore, where punishment is not accompanied
by shame, there is an end of education, and the punishment
appears as an act of violence, which the pupil proudly
disregards and ridicules.

150. The bond, therefore, which makes men of one
mind, and the development of which is a chief part of
education for manhood, is not sensuous love, but the instinct
for mutual respect. That instinct appears in two forms ;
in the child it begins as unconditional respect for adults
and becomes the desire to be respected by them, and to
measure by means of their actual respect how far he also
should respect himself. This confidence, not in one's
own but in an external standard of self-respect, is also the
special characteristic of childhood and youth. On its
existence alone is based the possibility of all instruction
and of all education of growing youths to perfect men.
The adult has in himself his standard of self-esteem, and
wishes to be respected by others only in so far as they have
first of all made themselves worthy of his respect. With
him that instinct assumes the form of demanding that he
shall be able to respect others, and that he shall himself
produce something worthy of respect. If there is no
such fundamental instinct in man, whence then arises the
phenomenon, that even the tolerably good man grieves to
find men worse than he thought they were, and is deeply
hurt at having to despise them ; for selfishness, on the con
trary, is necessarily pleased at being able to exalt itself
haughtily above others ? Now, the educator must
exhibit this latter characteristic of adult manhood, just
as, in the case of the pupil, the former characteristic is
to be relied on with certainty. In this respect, the aim of
education is just to produce adult manhood in the sense
that we have mentioned. Only when that aim is attained
is education really completed and ended. Hitherto many

NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 175

men have remained children all their lives, viz., those
who needed for their satisfaction the approval of neigh
bours, and believed they had done nothing right unless
they pleased the latter. In contrast to these, strong robust
characters have been those few who could rise above the
judgment of others and satisfy themselves. As a rule,
the latter have been hated, while the former were not,
indeed, respected, but were, nevertheless, considered
amiable.

151. The foundation of all moral education is this;
that one should know there is such an instinct in the child
and presuppose it firmly established ; then, that one
should recognize it when it appears, and gradually develop
it more and more by suitable stimulation, and by pre
senting to it material for its satisfaction. The very
first principle is to direct it to the only object that is
suitable, viz., to moral matters, but not to put it off with
some material that is foreign to it. Learning, for instance,
contains within itself its charm and its reward. Strenuous
diligence could at most deserve approval as an exercise in
self-control ; but this free and supererogatory diligence
will scarcely find a place, at least in the purely universal
national education. That the pupil will learn what he
ought to must, therefore, be regarded as a matter of
course, of which nothing more is to be said. The quicker
and better learning of the more capable mind must be
regarded merely as a natural phenomenon, which entitles
him to no praise or distinction, and above all does not
palliate other defects. It is in moral matters alone that
a sphere of action ought to be allotted to this instinct ;
but the root of all morality is self-possession, self-control,
the subordination of the selfish instincts to the idea of
the community. By this alone, and by absolutely nothing
else, shall it be possible for the pupil to receive the educa-

176 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

tor's approval, which he is directed by his spiritual
nature, and accustomed by education, to need for his own
satisfaction. As we have already mentioned in our second
address, there are two very different ways of subordinat
ing the personal self to the community. First of all,
that way which absolutely must exist and can in no wise
be omitted by anyone, subordination to the law of the
constitution which is drawn up merely for the regulation
of the community. He who does not transgress this law
is not blamed, and that is all; he does not, however, receive
approbation. Similarly, real displeasure and censure
would fall upon him who transgressed ; this would take
place in public if the wrong were, public, and if it remained
ineffective, it could even be intensified by the addition
of punishment. Secondly, there is that subordination
of the individual to the community which cannot be
demanded but can only be given voluntarily, viz., the
raising and advancing of the well-being of the community
by self-sacrifice. In order to impress correctly upon the
pupils from youth upwards the mutual relationship of mere
legality and this higher virtue, it will be appropriate to
allow him only, against whom for a certain period there
has been no complaint in regard to legality, to make these
voluntary sacrifices as the reward, so to speak, of legality,
but to refuse this permission to him who is not yet quite
sure of himself in regard to regularity and order. The
objects of such voluntary acts have already been pointed
out in general, and will be indicated still more clearly
later. Let this kind of sacrifice receive active approbation
and real recognition of its merits, not in public in the form
of praise, which might corrupt the heart, make it vain, and
turn it from its independence, but in secret and with the
pupil alone. This recognition ought to be nothing more
than the outward expression of the pupil's own good

NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 177

conscience, the ratification of his satisfaction with him
self and of his self-respect, and the encouragement to
rely still further on himself. The following arrangement
would promote admirably the advantages hereby intended.
Where there are several male and female teachers, which
we assume will be the rule, let each child choose freely,
and as his feelings and confidence move him, one of them
as a special friend and, as it were, adviser in matters of
conscience. Let him seek his advice whenever it is difficult
for him to do right. Let the teacher help him by friendly
exhortation ; let him be the confidant of the voluntary
acts which he undertakes ; and, finally, let him be the
person who crowns excellence with his approval. Now,
through these advisers in matters of conscience education
would inevitably be of systematic aid to each individual in
his own rise to ever greater power of self-control and self-
possession. In this way steadiness and independence will i
gradually arise ; with their production, education comes I
to an end and ceases. By our own deeds and actions is'
the sphere of the moral world most clearly opened to us ;
when it is thus opened to anyone, it is in truth opened to
him. Such a person himself now knows what is contained
in the moral world, and no longer needs the testimony of
others concerning himself ; he can sit properly in judg
ment on himself, and is from now onwards an adult.

152. By means of what has just been said we have
closed a gap that remained in our previous lecture and have,
for the first time, made our proposal really practicable.
Pleasure in the right and good for its own sake ought to
be set, by means of the new education, in the place of the
material hope or fear that has been employed hitherto ;
this pleasure, as the sole existing motive, ought to set all
future life in motion ; this is the essential feature of our
proposal. But the first question that arises here is this ;

12

178 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

how, then, is this pleasure itself to be created ? Created,
indeed, in the proper sense of the word, it cannot be,
for men cannot make something out of nothing. If our
proposal is to be practicable at all, this pleasure must
exist originally, and be simply present and innate in all

I men without exception. And in fact it is so. Every child
without exception wishes to be upright and good, and

i does not want merely to be healthy, like a young animal.
Love is the essential element in man ; it exists, as man
exists, whole and complete, and nothing can be added to it,
for it transcends the growing phenomenon of the sensuous
life, and is independent of it. It is knowledge alone to
which this sensuous life is connected, and which begins
and develops with it. This development is but slow and
gradual with the progress of time ; how, then, is that
innate love to pass through the years of ignorance, and
develop and exercise itself until an ordered system of ideas
of right and wrong is formed, to which the motive of plea
sure can be connected ? Wise nature has removed the
difficulty without any assistance from us. Consciousness,
starting from within the child, presents itself to him
outwardly, embodied in the judgment of the adult
world. Until a rational judge is developed in him, he
is referred to this world by a natural instinct, and thus
a conscience is given him outside himself, until one is
produced within him. The new education ought to
recognize this truth, but little known until now, and guide
towards what is right the love that exists independent
of education. Up to now, this simplicity and childlike
faith of the young in the higher perfection of adults has
been used, as a rule, for their corruption. It was pre
cisely their innocence and their natural faith in us that
made it possible for us, before they could distinguish
good from evil, to implant in them, instead of the good

NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 179

that they inwardly wished, our own corruption, which
they would have abhorred if they had been able to
recognize it.

153. This, I say, is the very greatest transgression of
which our age is guilty, and this also explains a phenomenon
of daily occurrence ; that, as a rule, man becomes so
much the worse, more selfish, more dead to all good
impulses, and more unfit for any good deed, the older
he gets and the farther he has gone from the early days ,
of his innocence — days which even yet echo, though
faintly, in some intimations of the Good. It also proves
that the present generation, if it does not completely
isolate its successors, will inevitably leave behind an even
more corrupt posterity, and this, again, one still more
corrupt. An honoured teacher of the human race says
of them with striking truth, that it were better that a
millstone were hanged at once about their neck, and they
were drowned in the depths of the sea. It is an absurd
slander on human nature to say that man is born a sinner.
If that were true, how, then, could there ever come to him
an idea of sin, which, indeed, is possible only in contrast
with what is not sin ? His life makes him a sinner, and
human life hitherto was usually a progressive development
in sinfulness.

154. What has been said shows in a new light the
necessity of making preparation without delay for a real
education. If only the youths of the future could grow
up without any contact with adults and entirely without
education, one might always test what the result would be.
But even if we only leave them in our society, their
education takes place of itself without any wish or will
of ours. They educate themselves to us ; to be like us,
that forces itself upon them as their pattern. They
emulate us, even without our requiring this, and desire

i8o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

nothing more than , to become just as we are. Now,
usually the great majority of us are thoroughly perverse,
partly without knowing it ; and because we are ourselves
just as simple as children, we consider our perversity to
be what is right. Even if we knew that we were perverse,
how could we suddenly lay aside, in the presence of our
children, that which a long life has made second nature
to us, and exchange our whole former disposition and
spirit for a new one ? In contact with us they must
become corrupt ; that is unavoidable. If we have a
spark of love for them, we must remove them from our
tainted atmosphere and erect a purer abode for them.
We must bring them into the society of men who,
whatever they may be in other respects, have at least,
by continuous practice, become accustomed, and gained
the ability, to remember that children are watching them,
the power of restraining themselves at least for so long,
and the knowledge of how one must appear before
children. We must not let them out of this society into
ours again, until they have learnt to detest thoroughly
all our corruption, and are thereby completely safe from
all infection.

These are the points that we have considered it neces
sary to bring forward here concerning moral education
in general.

155. That the children ought to live together in com
plete isolation from adults, with only their teachers and
masters, has been mentioned several times. It is under
stood, without special note from us, that this education
must be given to both sexes in the same way. A separa
tion of the sexes into special institutions for boys and
girls would not suit our purpose, and would break several
important principles of the education for perfect manhood.
The subjects of instruction are the same for both sexes ;

NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 181

the difference in the manual tasks can easily be maintained,
even while the rest of the education is common. Like
the larger society which they are to enter some day as
perfect human beings, the smaller society in which they
are trained for manhood must consist of a combination
of both sexes. Both must first of all recognize and
learn to love in one another their common humanity, and
must have male and female friends, before their attention
is directed to sex distinction and they become husbands
and wives. Also, the general relationship of the two
sexes to each other, stout-hearted protection on the one
side and loving help on the other, must appear in the
educational institution and be fostered in the pupils.

156. If our proposal should come to be realized, the
first business would be to frame a law for the internal
organization of these educational institutions. If the
fundamental principle we have put forward once becomes
thoroughly established, this is a very easy task, and we do
not intend to lose time over it here.

157. It is a principal requirement of this new national
education that in it learning and working shall be com
bined, that the institution shall appear, to the pupils at
least, to be self-supporting, and that everyone shall be
reminded to contribute to this aim with all his strength.
This is in any case directly required by the problem of
education as such, quite apart from the purpose of outward
practicability and of economy, which will undoubtedly
be expected of our proposal. One reason is that all who
get through only the universal national education are
intended for the working classes, and training them to
be good workmen is undoubtedly part of their education.
The special reason, however, is that a man's well-founded
confidence that he will always be able to get on in the world
by his own strength, and that he requires for maintenance

1 82 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

no charity from others, is part of man's personal independ
ence, and conditions moral independence much more
than seems to be believed at present. This training would
supply another part of education, which one might call
education in the proper management of one's resources,
which hitherto has also usually been left to blind chance.
This part of education must be considered, not from
the paltry and narrow point of view of saving for the sake
of saving, which some ridicule with the name of economy,
but from the higher moral standpoint. Our age often
lays down as a principle beyond all contradiction that one
must flatter, cringe, and be everyone's lackey, if one wishes
to live, and that no other way will do. Our age does not
reflect that, even if one should wish to spare it the
counter-proposition (which may sound heroic, but is
absolutely true), namely that, if such is the case, it ought
not to go on living but ought to die, there yet remains the
remark that our age ought to have learnt to live with
honour. Let anyone fully inquire who are the persons
conspicuous for dishonourable behaviour ; he will always
find that they have not learnt to work, or that they are
afraid of work, and, moreover, manage things badly.
The pupil of our education ought, therefore, to be made
accustomed to work, in order that he may be raised
above the temptation to dishonesty in his struggle for a
living. It ought to be impressed deeply on his mind as
the very first principle of honour, that it is shameful to
be willing to owe his means of existence to anything but
his own work.

158. Pestalozzi wishes all kinds of manual work to be
carried on together with learning. We do not wish to
deny the possibility of this combination under the con
dition mentioned by him, that the child is already
thoroughly skilled in manual work ; yet this proposal seems

NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 183

to us to arise from the paltriness of the original aim. In
my opinion, instruction must be represented as so sacred
and honourable that it requires the whole attention and
concentration, and cannot be received along with some
thing else. If such manual work as knitting, spinning,
etc., is to be carried on during working hours in seasons
which in any case keep the pupils indoors, it will be very
useful to combine with it collective mental exercises under
supervision, in order that the mind may remain active.
But in this case the work is the important thing, and these
exercises are to be regarded, not as instruction, but merely
as recreation.

159. In general, all manual work of this inferior kind
must be put forward only as incidental, and not as essen
tial. The essential manual work is the practice of agri
culture, gardening, cattle rearing, and those, trades which
they need in their little State. Of course, the partici
pation in these that is expected of anyone is to be pro
portional to the physical strength of his age ; the rest of
the energy is to be supplied by machines and tools that
will be invented. Here the chief consideration is that,
so far as possible, the pupils must understand the prin
ciples of what they do, and that they have already received
the information necessary for their occupations concern
ing the growing of plants, the characteristics and needs
of the animal body, and the laws of mechanics. In this
way their education becomes a kind of course of instruc
tion in the occupations which they have to follow in the
future, and the thoughtful and intelligent farmer is
trained by direct perception. Further, their mechanical
work is even at this stage ennobled and made intellectual ;
it is just as much a verification from direct perception of
what they have grasped in their minds, as it is work for
a living. Even though associated with the animal and

1 84 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

with the clod, they do not sink to the level of these, but
remain within the sphere of the spiritual world.

1 60. Let it be the fundamental law of this little economic
State that no article of food, clothing, etc., and, so far
as this is possible, no tool is to be used, which is not
produced and made there. If this housekeeping requires
support from outside, natural objects should be supplied,
but none of any other kind than those it possesses. This
must be done without the pupils learning that their own
products have been increased ; or, if it is appropriate
that they should be told, they should receive the supply
simply as a loan and return it at a fixed time. Now, for
this independence and self-sufficiency of the community
every individual should work with all his might, without
making a statement of account with it or claiming anything
for his own property. Everyone should know that he is
indebted absolutely to the community, and should eat or
starve along with the community. Thereby the hon
ourable independence of the State and of the family,
which he is to enter some day, and the relationship of
their individual members to them, is disclosed to his
vivid observation and rooted ineradicably in his heart.

161. This training to mechanical work is the point
at which the education of the scholar, which is a part of,
and rests upon, the universal national education, diverges
from the latter. The scholar's education, which is now
to be discussed, is, I said, part of the universal national
education. I offer no opinion as to whether in the future
everyone who believes he has sufficient ability to study
or ranks himself for any reason with the higher- classes of
former days will not still be free to take the old path of
scholarly education. If we should once get our national
education, experience will show how the majority of
those scholars will fare, with their purchased learning,

NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 185

against, I will not say the scholar trained in the new
school, but even against the ordinary man produced by it.
However, I want to speak now, not of that, but of the
scholar's education according to the new method.

According to its principles, the future scholar, too, must
have gone through the universal national education and
have received completely and clearly its first part, the
development of knowledge by sensation, perception, and
whatever is connected with the latter. Permission to
take up this profession can be granted by the new national
education only to the boy who shows an excellent gift
for learning and a conspicuous inclination for the world
of ideas. It must, however, grant this permission to
every boy who shows these qualities, without exception
and without regard to so-called difference of birth.
For a man is not a scholar for his own convenience ;
every^_talent of that kind is a preciou^_£ossession of the
nation, and may not be taken from it.

162. The^person who is not a scholar is destined to
maintain the human race at the stage of culture it has
reached, the scholar to advance it further according to
a clear conception and with deliberate art. The scholar
with his conception must always be in advance of the
present age, must understand the future, and be able to
implant it in the present for its future development. For
this purpose he needs a clear survey of the previous
condition of the world, unlimited skill in pure thought
independent of phenomena, and, in order that he may be
able to communicate his thoughts, control of language
down to its living and creative root. All this necessitates
mental self-activity, without guidance from others, and
solitary reflection, in which, therefore, the future scholar
must be exercised from the moment his profession is
decided ; it does not mean, as in the case of the person

1 86 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

who is not a scholar, merely thinking under the eye of an
ever-present teacher ; it necessitates a great amount of
subsidiary knowledge, which is quite useless in his voca
tion to the person who is* not a scholar. This solitary
reflection will be the scholar's work, the daily occupation
of his life. He is to be trained at once for this work,
but in return he is to be exempted from the other mechani
cal toil. The education of the future scholar for manhood
will, therefore, as formerly, proceed in general simultan
eously with the universal national education, and along
with all the others he will attend the instruction it supplies.
Only those hours which the others spend in manual work
will be devoted to the study of whatever his future
profession specifically demands ; this will be the only
difference. The general knowledge of agriculture, of
other mechanical arts, and of their particular methods,
which is to be expected of every man, the scholar will
undoubtedly have learnt already while passing through
the first class ; if he has not, he will have to acquire that
knowledge afterwards. It is obvious that he is the last
pupil of all to be exempted from the physical exercises
that are prescribed. To give an account of the particular
subjects which a scholar's education would include, or
the course to be followed in them, is, however, beyond
the scope of these addresses.

ELEVENTH ADDRESS

ON WHOM WILL THE CARRYING-OUT OF THIS
SCHEME OF EDUCATION DEVOLVE ?

163. THE scheme for the new German national education
has been stated sufficiently for our purpose. The next
question, which is now urgent, is this : who ought to
place himself at the head to carry out this scheme, who is
to be relied on, and on whom have we relied ?

We have represented this ^ducation as the highest and,
at present, the only urggn^_^°j^gern of German love of
fatherland, and wish to make it first and foremost the
means of bringing into the world the improvement and
regeneration of the whole human race. But that love
of fatherland ought above all to inspire the German
State, wherever Germans are governed, and take the-lead,
and be the motive power in all its decisions. It is the
State, therefore, to which we shall first of all have to
turn our expectant gaze.

Will it realize our hopes ? After what has already
been said, what can we expect of it, looking, as is always
understood, at no particular State, but at Germany as
a whole ?

164. In modern Europe educatior! actually originated,
not with the State, but with that power from which
States, too, for the most part obtained their power —
from the heavenly spiritual kingdom of the Church.

187

1 88 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

The Church considered itself not so much a part of the
earthly community as a colony from heaven quite foreign
to the earthly community and sent out to enrol citizens
for that foreign State, wherever it could take root. Its
education aimed at nothing else but that men should not
be damned in the other world but saved. The Refor
mation merely united this ecclesiastical power, which
otherwise continued to regard itself as before, to the
temporal power, with which formerly it had very often
been actually in conflict. In that connection, this was ^
the only difference that resulted from that event ; there /
also remained, therefore, the old view of educational
matters. Even in recent times, and until the present
day, the education of the richer classes has been looked
upon as the private concern of the parents, who might
arrange it to their own satisfaction ; and their children
were usually put to school simply because some day it
would be useful to them. The sole public education,
that of the people, however, was simply education for
salvation in heaven ; the essential feature was a little
Christianity and reading, with writing if it could be
managed — all for the sake of Christianity. All other
development of man was left to the blind and casual
influence of the society in which they grew up, and to
actual life. Even the institutions for scholarly education
were intended mainly for the training of ecclesiastics.
Theology was the important faculty ; the others were
merely supplementary to it, and usually received only
its leavings.

165. So long as those who stood at the head of the
Government remairfed in the dark concerning its true
aim and were filled with that anxiety of conscience about
the salvation of themselves and others, one could rely
with certainty on their zeal for this kind of public educa-

THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 189

tion and on their earnest efforts in its behalf. But, as
soon as they were clear about the true aim of government
and understood that the sphere of the State's action lies
within the visible world, it must have been evident to
them that anxiety about the eternal salvation of their
subjects could be no concern of theirs, and that anyone
who wanted to be saved there should see to it himself.
From that time onwards they considered they were doing
enough, if for the future they left to their original
destiny the foundations and institutions that had origi
nated in more pious ages. However unsuitable and
insufficient they might be for totally changed times,
they considered they were neither obliged to contribute
to them by saving on their other aims, nor justified
in interfering actively and setting useful innovations in
the place of antiquated and useless things. To all pro
posals of this kind the ever-ready answer was : the State
has no money for that. If an exception were ever made,
it was to the advantage of the institutions for higher
education, which shed splendour far and wide, and pro
cured fame for their patrons. But the education of
that class which is the real foundation of the human race,
by which the higher culture is ever restored, and on which
that culture must continually react — the education of
the people remained neglected and, from the Reforma- '
tion down to the present day, has been in a state of
increasing decay.

1 66. Now, if for the future, and from this very hour,
we are to be able to hope better things in this matter
from the State, it wijil have jto exchange what seems to
have been up to the present its fundamental conception \
of th.e aim of education for an entirely different one. !
It must see that it was quite right before to refuse to be
anxious about the eternal salvation of its citizens, because

i9o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

no s^ecia^ training is required for such salvation, and
that a nursery for heaven, like the Church, whose power
has at last been handed over to the State, should not be
permitted, for it only obstructs all good education, and
must be dispensed with. On the other hand,_the State

/ must see that education for ; Jife__on earth is very greatly

/ needed "; from such a thorough education, training for
/ heaven follows as an easy supplement. The more
L enlightened the State thought it was before, the more
firmly it seems to have believed that it could attain its
true aim merely by means of coercive institutions, and
without any religion and morality in its citizens, who
might do as they liked in regard to such matters. May
it have learnt this at least from recent experiences — that
it cannot do so, and that it has got into its present con
dition just because of the want of religion and morality !
167. As for the State's doubt whether it can meet the
cost of a national education, would that one could con
vince it that by this one expenditure it will. provide for
most of the others in the most economical way, and that,
if only it undertakes this, it will soon have no other big
expenditure to make ! U^r^tp^jthe^^resent, by far the
largest part of the State's income has been spent on the
maintenance of standing armies. We have seen the
result of that expenditure ; that is sufficient ; it is
beyond our plan to go more deeply into the special
reasons for that result, which lie in the organization of

7*-those armies. On the other hand, the State which
introduced universally the national education proposed
by us, from the moment that a new generation of youths
had passed through it, would need no special army at

•?~all, but would have in them an army such as no age has
seen. Each individual is exercised thoroughly in
every possible use of his physical powers, and under-

THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 191

stands them at once, being accustomed to bear every effort
and hardship ; his mind, developed in direct perception^
is ever alert and self-possessed ; in his heart there lives
love of the community of which he is a member, of the
State, and of his country, and this love destroys every
other selfish impulse. The State can summon them and
put them under arms when it will, and can be sure that
no enemy will defeat them. Formerly, another source'
of concern and expenditure in wisely governed States
was improvement in the management of the State's
resources in its widest sense and in all its branches. In
this, owing to the ignorance and helplessness of the lower
classes, much care and money were spent in vain, and the
matter has everywhere made but little progress. By
means^of our education the State will get working-
classes accustomed from their youth up to thinking about
their business, and already able and inclined to help them
selves. Now if, in addition, the State can help them in
a suitable way, they will understand in a moment, and
accept its instruction very gratefully. All branches
of the State's economy will in a short time attain, without
much difficulty, a prosperity which no age has yet seen ;
and the State's original expenditure will be repaid a
thousandfold, if it cares to reckon up and if by that time
it has learnt the true fundamental value of things.

o

Hitherto the State has had to do a great deal, and yet has
never been able to do enough, for law and police institu
tions. Convict_.prispris and refpj_matjories have caused
it expense. Finally, the more that was spent on poor-
houses, the more they required ; indeed, under the
prevailing circumstances, they seemed to be institutions
for making people poor. In a State which makes the
new education universal, the former wiH~"bF greatly
reduced, the latter will vanish entirely. Early discipline'

192 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

is a guarantee against the need in later years of reforma
tion and penal discipline, which are very doubtful

, measures, while in a nation so trained there are no poor

I at all-

1 68. May the State and all its advisers dare to look its
true present position in the face and acknowledge it !
May it realize vividly that, apart from the education of
the succeeding generations, there remains absolutely no
sphere, in which it can act originally and independently
like a real State, and make decisions ! May it see that,
if it does not want to do nothing at all, there is but this
that it can still do, and may it realize, too, that no one
will envy or detract from the merit of this service ! The
fact that we can nc^ longer make active resistance has
already been postulated by us as obvious, and is admitted
by everyone. Now, how can we justify the continuance
of our forfeited existence against the reproach of cow
ardice and of an unworthy love of life ? In no other way
than by deciding not to live for ourselves, and by proving
this in action ; by being willing to make ourselves the
seed of a more worthy posterity and, for its sake alone,
to maintain ourselves until we have set it up. Deprived
of that chief aim in life, what can we do ? Our constitu
tions will be made for us ; our alliances and the employ
ment of our fighting forces will be prescribed to us ;
a code of law will be given to us ; even justice and judg
ment and their administration will sometimes be taken
from us. For the immediate future we shall be spared
the trouble of these matters. It is only of education
that no one has thought ; if we are looking for an occu
pation, let us seize this! Wgjnay__expect to be left in it
undisturbed. I hope — perhaps I deceive myself in
this, but as I care to live only for that hope, I cannot
give up hoping — I hope that I shall convince some

THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 193

Germans, and get them to see that it is education alone
that can save us from all the ills that oppress us. I
rely especially on necessity having made us more inclined
to attention and to serious reflection. Other countries
have other consolations and other resources ; it is not
to be expected that they will give any attention to the
thought of education, or have any faith in it, should it
ever occur to them. I hope rather that it will be a rich
source of amusement to the readers of their papers, when
they learn that anyone expects such great things from
education.

169. May the State and its advisers not let themselves
become more loath to take up this task by the considera
tion that the result hoped for is remote ! If among the
numerous and highly complicated reasons for our present
fate one wanted to single out that for which our govern
ments alone are peculiarly to blame, it would be found
that, although they above all others are bound to look
the future in the face and master it, they have never
tried, in spite of the urgency of the great events of their
time, to do more than get out of the difficulty of the
immediate moment as well as they could. In regard to
the future, however, they have reckoned, not on their
present age, but on some piece of good luck which should
sever the fixed chain of cause and effect. But such hopes
are deceptive. A motive power which is once allowed
to enter the flow of time continues and completes its
course ; once the first careless act has been committed,
belated reflection cannot arrest it. Our fate has for the
moment removed from us the possibility of making the
first mistake, that of providing merely for the present ;
the present is no longer ours. Let us not repeat the
second, that of hoping for a better future from anything
but ourselves. Indeed, the present can afford no con-

I94 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

solation for the duty to live to any one of us who requires
for life something more than food ; the hope of a better
future is the only atmosphere in which we can still
breathe. But only the dreamer can base this hope on
anything but what he himself can plant in the present
for the development of a future. Let those who rule
over us permit us to think as well of them as we do of
each other, and as the better man feels ! Let them put
themselves at the head of the business that is to us, too,
quite clear, so that we may yet see arising before our
eyes that which will some day wipe from our memory
the shame that has been done to the German name before
our eyes !

170. If the State undertakes the proposed task, it will
make this education universal throughout the length and
breadth of its domain for every one of its future citizens
without exception. Indeed, it is for that universality
alone that we need the State, since for individual begin
nings and isolated attempts the resources of well-disposed
"private persons would suffice. Of course, it is not to be
expected that all parents will be willing to be separated
from their children, and to hand them over to this new
education, a notion of which it will be difficult to convey
to them. From past experience we must reckon that
everyone who still believes he is able to support his
children at home will set himself against public education,
and especially against a public education that separates
so strictly and lasts so long. Now, in these cases of ex
pected resistance it has been customary in the past for
statesmen to reject the proposal with the reply: The
State has no right to use compulsion for that purpose.
If they want to wait until all men have the good will,
since universal goodwill will never be produced without
education, they are thereby secured against all improve-

THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 195

ment, and may expect that there will be no change
until the end of time. In so far as these statesmen are
among those who either consider any education an un
necessary luxury, with which people should be supplied
as scantily as possible, or see in our proposals only a
daring new experiment with humanity, which may or
may not succeed, they are to be praised for their con
scientiousness. Those who are filled with admiration
for the existing state of public education and with de
light at the perfection which it has reached under their
direction cannot really be expected now to agree with
something which they do not already know. Not one
of them is of any use for our purpose, and it would be
deplorable if the decision in this matter were to rest
with them. But statesmen might be found and consulted
on this matter who, above all things, have educated them
selves by a deep and thorough study of philosophy and
science, who are in real earnest about their business, have
a definite idea of man and of his vocation, and are capable
of understanding the present and of judging what is
absolutely necessary for mankind at this time. If such
men perceived from those preliminary conceptions that
education alone can save us from the barbarism and
relapse into savagery that is otherwise bound to over
whelm us, if they had a vision of the new human race
which would arise through this education, if they were
themselves inwardly convinced of the infallibility and
certainty of the proposed remedy, they might be expected
to have realized at the same time that the State, as the
supreme administrator of human affairs and the guardian
of those who are its wards, responsible only to God and
to its own conscience, has a perfect right even to compel
the latter for their welfare. For where is there a State
to-day which doubts whether it has the right to compel

196 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

its subjects to military service, and for that purpose to
take away children from parents, whether one parent or
both be willing or unwilling ? Yet this compulsion to
adopt permanently a certain mode of life against one's
will is far more serious, and has frequently the most
harmful results to the moral condition, health, and life
of those who are so compelled. On the other hand, the
compulsion of which we speak restores complete personal
freedom when education is finished, and can have none
but the most salutary results. It is true that even mili
tary service was formerly voluntary ; but, when it was
discovered that this was not sufficient for the purpose
intended, we did not scruple to back it up by compulsion,
because the matter was sufficiently important for us,
and necessity demanded compulsion. If only in regard
to education, too, our eyes were opened to our need and
the matter became as important to us, that hesitation
would vanish of itself ; especially as compulsion will be
needed only in the first generation and will vanisTTin the
next, which will itself have passed through this education.
Moreover, compulsory military service, too, will thereby
be ended, because those who are thus educated are all
equally willing to bear arms for their fatherland. Even
if, in order not to have too much of an outcry at the
beginning, it is desirable to limit this compulsion to public
education in the same way as compulsion to military
service has hitherto been limited, and to exclude from the
former the classes that are exempt from the latter, no
serious harm will result. The intelligent parents among
those exempted will voluntarily hand over their children
to this education. The children of the unintelligent
parents of these classes, an insignificant minority, may
continue to grow up as before. They will survive among
the better generation that is to be created, and serve

THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 197

merely as a curious memorial of the past, and to encourage
the new age to a vivid knowledge of its greater good
fortune.

171. Now, this education is to be national education—
of the Germans simply ; and the great majority of those
who speak the German language, and not just the citizens
of this or that particular German State only, are to exist
as a new race of men. Every German State, therefore,
must undertake this task for itself, and independently
of all the others. The language in which this matter
was first mentioned, in which the means thereto are and
will be written, in which the teachers are trained, the
one vein of sensuous imagery that permeates all this is
common to all Germans. I can scarcely imagine how and
with what changes all these means of education, especially
to the full extent of our scheme, could be translated into
the language of any foreign country so as to seem, not
an alien transplanted thing, but a native product arising
from the very life of its language. For all Germans
alike this difficulty is removed ; for them the thing is
ready ; they need only avail themselves of it.

172. In this respect it is well for us, indeed, that there
are various German States separated from one another.
What has so often been to our disadvantage may perhaps
in this important national business serve to our advantage.
The rivalry of several States and the desire to anticipate
one another may perhaps bring about what the calm
self-sufficiency of the single State would not produce.
For it is clear that, whichever German State makes a start
in this matter, that State will win for itself the chief
place in the respect, love, and gratitude of all, and will
rank as the greatest benefactor and the true founder of
the nation. It will encourage the others, set them an
instructive example, and be their model. It will remove

198 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

doubts which hold the others fast. It will produce the
textbooks and the first teachers, and lend them to the
others. The State that follows it next will win the second
place of honour. There is gratifying evidence that among
the Germans the taste for higher things has never quite
died out, for several German peoples and States have
striven with one another for the honour of having the
higher culture. Some have claimed to have more exten
sive freedom of the press and greater disregard for tradi
tional opinion, others better organized schools and
universities ; some have cited former glory and merit,
others something else ; and the strife could not be de
cided. On the present occasion it will be decided.
Only that education which dares to make itself universal
and to include all men without distinction is a real part
of life and is sure of itself. Any other is foreign trimming,
put on simply for show and not even worn with right good
conscience. It will now be revealed where the boasted
culture exists only in a few people of the middle class,
who show it in their writings (and such people are to be
found in every German State), and where, on the other
hand, it has reached also the higher classes who advise
the State. Then it will be shown, too, how one has to
judge the zeal displayed here and there for the erection
and welfare of institutions for higher education ; whether
the motive was pure love of educating mankind, which
would indeed treat with equal zeal every branch of educa
tion and especially the very first foundation, or mere
passion for showing off and, perhaps, paltry schemes for
making money.

173. The first German State to carry out this pro
posal will, I said, have the greatest glory. Yet it will
not long stand alone, but will doubtless soon find imi
tators and rivals. The important thing is to make a

THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 199

start. Even if there were no other motive, a sense of
honour, or jealousy, or the desire to have what another
possesses and, if possible, to have it in a better form, will
spur on the rest to follow the example one after the other.
Then, too, the above-mentioned considerations concerning
the State's own advantage, which perhaps seem doubtful
to many just now, will become more obvious, once they
are proved by personal observation.

If it could be expected that every German State would "'
at once, and from this very hour, make serious prepara
tions to carry out that scheme, the better generation that
we need would be in existence in twenty-five years, and
anyone who might expect to live so long could hope to
see it with his own eyes.

174. But we must also take this contingency into }
account. Among all the German States that now exist, j
there might not be a single one which had among its i
highest advisers a man capable of understanding, and of
being affected by, all that has been mentioned above, '•
and in which the majority of the counsellors did not at
any rate oppose him. In that case, of course, this business
would devolve upon well-disposed private persons, and
it would be desirable that they should make a start with
the proposed new education. We have in mind here,
first of all, great landowners, who could establish on their
estates such educational institutions for the children of
their dependents. It is to Germany's credit, and a very
honourable mark of distinction from the other nations
of modern Europe, that among the class mentioned there
have always been some here and there, who made it
their serious business to care for the instruction and
education of the children on their estates, and were
gladly willing to do for them to the best of their know
ledge. It is to be hoped that they will now be inclined

200 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

to inform themselves about the complete scheme that is
offered them, and be just as willing to do now on a large
scale and thoroughly what they have hitherto done on a
small scale and imperfectly. It may be that some of
them did what they did partly because they saw that it
was more profitable for them to have educated, rather
than uneducated, dependents. In those cases where the
State, by abolishing the relationship of serf and lord,
has now removed the latter motive, may it bear in mind
the more earnestly that it is its essential duty at the same
time not to do away with the one blessing which, where
the lords were well-disposed, was attached to that
relationship ! May the State in this case not fail to do
that which, apart from this, is its duty, when it has
released therefrom those who did it voluntarily in its
stead ! Then, in regard to the cities, we look to volun
tary associations formed for that purpose by well-disposed
citizens. So far as I have been able to see, no burden
of misery has ever yet extinguished in German hearts
the impulse to do good. Yet, owing to a number of
faults in our institutions, which could all be included
under the one head of neglected education, these good
works seldom remove misery, but seem, indeed, often to
increase it. May we at last direct that excellent impulse
chiefly towards the good work which puts an end to all
misery and to all need of further good works — the good
work of education. Yet we need, and count upon, a
blessing and sacrifice of another kind, which consists,
not in giving, but in doing and acting. May budding
scholars, whose position allows it, dedicate the time
between their departure from the university and their
appointment to a public post to the business of receiving
instruction in these institutions concerning this method
of teaching, and of teaching in them ! Apart from the

THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 201

fact that they will thereby deserve well of the community,
we can assure them that they will themselves gain very
much. All the knowledge which they carry away with
them from the usual university teaching, and which is
often so dead, will become clear and living in the atmos
phere of general observation into which they come here.
They will learn to reproduce and use their knowledge
with skill. Since all the features of mankind appear
pure and clear in the child, they will acquire a store of
true knowledge of mankind that alone deserves the name ;
they will be introduced to the great art of life and action,
in which the university usually gives no instruction.

175. If the State does not undertake the proffered task/
so much the greater glory for the private persons who do.
Far be it from us to anticipate the future with surmises,
or strike the note of doubt and distrust. We have stated
clearly what we wish for first. We may, however, be-
permitted to say that, if the State and the princes should
in fact leave the matter to private persons, this would be
in accordance with the usual course of German develop- '•
ment and culture, which has been already mentioned
and proved by examples, and which would continue so
to the end. In this case, too, the State will follow in
its own time ; at first like an individual, wanting just
to do its part, until later it reflects that it is not a part,
but the whole, and that it is its duty, as well as its right, -
to care for the whole. From that moment onwards, all
the independent efforts of private persons cease and are
subordinated to the State's general scheme.

Should the matter take this course, the intended refor
mation of our race will certainly proceed but slowly, and
without the possibility of a definite and fixed survey and
estimate of the whole. But let us not be deterred by this
from making a start ! It is the very nature of the thing

202 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

that it can never perish, but, once set in motion, it lives
on of itself and spreads, ever gaining fresh ground. Every
one who has received this education becomes a witness
for it and a zealous propagator. Everyone will pay his
debt for the teaching received by becoming a teacher
himself, and by making as many disciples as he can, who
will also in turn some day become teachers. This must
continue until the whole community without exception
is affected.

176. If the State should not undertake the matter,
private enterprise has this to fear ; that those parents
who are at all well-to-do will not give up their children
to this education. In that case, in God's name let
us turn with full confidence to the poor orphans, to
the wretched street-children, and to all those whom
the adult world has cast out and rejected. Formerly,
especially in those German States where the piety of
ancestors had greatly increased and richly endowed the
public educational institutions, many parents let their
families have instruction, because along with it, as in
no other occupation, they found maintenance at the same
time. Let us, therefore, since it is necessary, reverse
this order, and give bread to those to whom no one else
gives it, in order that, along with the bread, they may
receive mental culture also. Let us not fear that the
misery and wildness of their former condition will hinder
our purpose ! If only we snatch them away from it
suddenly and completely, bring them into an entirely
new world, and leave nothing to remind them of the past,
they will themselves forget and be like newly-created
beings. Our course of instruction and daily routine
must guarantee that only good is engraven on this clean
new tablet. It will be a testimony against our age and
a warning to all posterity if the very ones whom it has

THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 203

rejected obtain through this rejection the sole privilege
of founding a new race, if they bring the blessing of educa
tion to the children of those who would not mix with
them, and if they become the ancestors of our future
heroes, sages, lawgivers, and saviours of mankind.

177. For the first establishment capable teachers and
educators above all are needed. Pestalozzi's school has
trained such people, and is always ready to train more.
An important thing to keep in mind at the beginning
will be that every institution of the kind should regard
itself also as a training school for teachers, where, round
the teachers who are already trained, a number of young
men may gather to learn and, at the same time, to practise
teaching, and by practice to learn it better and better.
This, too, will greatly facilitate the supply of teachers,
in case the institutions have at first to struggle against
poverty. Most of them will be there to learn ; let the
sole return asked of them be to apply for a time what they
have learnt to the benefit of the institution where they
learnt it.

Moreover, such an institution needs a building, initial
equipment, and an adequate piece of land. It seems
evident that, as these institutions develop, they will
contain a relatively large number of growing youths of
an age at which, under the existing arrangement, they
earn as servants not only their maintenance but also a
yearly wage. To these the children of more tender
age can be entrusted, and by diligence and wise economy,
which in any case are necessary, these institutions will
be mainly self-supporting. At first, so long as there are
none of these older pupils, the institutions will need rather
large contributions. It is to be hoped that people will
be more disposed to make contributions, when they see
the prospect of an end to them. Let us not be parsi-

2o4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

monious, and so prejudice the aim. It is far better that
we should do nothing at all than permit this.

My opinion, therefore, is that, goodwill alone pre
supposed, the realization of this scheme presents no
difficulty that could not easily be overcome by the com
bination of several people, and by the directing of all
their strength to this one purpose.

TWELFTH ADDRESS

CONCERNING THE MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION
UNTIL WE ATTAIN OUR MAIN OBJECT

178. THE education which we propose to the Germans
as their future national education has now been suffi
ciently described. When once the generation that has
been formed by this education is in existence — a genera
tion impelled by its taste for the right and the good and
by nothing else whatever ; a generation provided with an
understanding that is adequate for its standpoint and
recognizes the right unfailingly on every occasion ; a
generation equipped with full power, both physical and
spiritual, to carry out its will on every occasion — when
once this generation is in existence, everything that we
can long for in our boldest wishes will come into being
of itself from the very existence of that generation, and
will grow out of it naturally. That age is in so little
need of any rules we can make for its guidance that we
should rather have to learn from it.

Since this generation is in the meantime not in exis
tence, but must first be raised up by education, and since,
even if everything else should go on excellently and beyond
our expectation, we shall nevertheless require a consider
able interval before we pass over to that new age, the
more urgent question arises : How are we to manage to
get through this interval ? Since we can do nothing

205

206 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

better, how are we to maintain ourselves at any rate as the
soil on which the improvement may take place, and as
the point of departure at which this improvement may
begin its work ? When once the generation formed in
this way emerges from its seclusion and appears among
us, how are we to prevent it from finding among us actual
conditions that have not the slightest relationship to
the order of things which it has conceived as embodying
the right — actual conditions under which no one under
stands it or has the slightest wish for, or need of, such
an order of things, but, on the contrary, regards the
existing state of things as entirely natural and the only
one possible ? Would not those who have another world
in their hearts soon become confused ; and in this case
would not the new education be just as useless for the
improvement of actual life as the former education,
and lose its savour in the same way ?

179. If the majority of people continue in their
previous state of heedlessness, thoughtlessness, and lack
of concentration, this very result may be expected as
inevitable. He who lets himself go without paying heed
to himself, and allows himself to be moulded by circum
stances just as they please, soon accustoms himself to any
possible order of things. However much his eye may
have been offended by something when he first saw it, let
it only present itself anew every day in .the same way and
he accustoms himself to it. Later, he finds it natural,
and in the end he even gets to like it as something inevit
able ; he would not thank you for the restoration of
the original and better state of things, because this would
tear him out of the mode of life to which he has become
accustomed. In this way men become accustomed even
to slavery, if only their material existence is not thereby
affected, and in time they get to like it. It is just this

MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 207

that is the most dangerous thing about a state of subjection;
it makes men insensitive to all true honour, and, more
over, for the indolent man it has its very pleasant side,
because it relieves him of many a care and of the need
of thinking for himself.

1 80. Let us be on our guard against being taken un
awares by this sweetness of servitude, for it robs even our
posterity of the hope of future emancipation. If our
external activity is restricted and fettered, let us elevate
our spirit all the more boldly to the thought of freedom ;
let us rise to live in this thought and make it the sole
object of our wish and longing. What if freedom dis
appear for a time from the visible world ? Let us give
it a place of refuge in our innermost thoughts, until
there shall grow up round about us the new world which
has the power of manifesting our thoughts outwardly.
In the sphere where no one can deprive us of the freedom
to do as we think best — in our own minds let us make
ourselves a pattern, a prophecy, and a guarantee of that
which will become a reality when we are gone. Let us
not allow our spirit, as well as our body, to be bent and
subjected and brought into captivity.

181. If you ask me how this is to be brought about,
the only entirely comprehensive answer is this : We must
at once become what we ought to be in any case,
namely, Germans. We are not to subject our spirit ;
therefore we must before all things provide a spirit for
ourselves, and a firm and certain spirit ; we must become
earnest in all things and not go on existing frivolously, as
if life were a jest ; we must form for ourselves enduring and\
unshakable principles which will serve as a sure guide \
for all the rest of our thoughts and actions. Life and
thought with us must be of one piece and a solid and\
interpenetrating whole ; in both we must live according '

208 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

to nature and truth, and throw away foreign contrivances ;
in a word, we must provide character for ourselves ; for
to have character and to be German [Charakter haben
und deutsch sein] undoubtedly mean the same ; and the
thing has no special name in our language, because it is
intended to proceed immediately from our very existence
without any knowledge or reflection on our part.

182. We must first of all set our own thoughts to
work and think about the great events of our days, their
relation to us, and what we have to expect from them ;
and we must provide ourselves with a firm and clear view
of all these matters, and a definite and unchangeable Yes
or No in answer to the questions that arise out of them.
Everyone who makes the slightest claim to culture is
bound to do that. The animal life of man proceeds in
all ages according to the same laws, and in this every
age is alike. Only to the understanding are there such
things as different ages ; and only the man whose conception
penetrates them lives in them, and only he exists in his
own age ; any other kind of life is nothing but the life
of plants and animals. To let everything that happens
pass by one unperceived, perhaps to close eye and ear
diligently to its urgent message, and even to boast of such
thoughtlessness as if it were great wisdom— this may be
the proper thing for a rock on which the waves of the
sea beat without its feeling them, or for a tree-trunk
dashed to and fro by storms without its perceiving them ;
but in no wise does it beseem a thinking being. Even the
thinker who dwells in the higher spheres is not absolved
from this general obligation of understanding his own
age. Everything that is on the higher plane must want
to influence the immediate present in its own fashion ;
and he who truly lives in the former lives at the same
time in the latter also ; if he did not live in the latter

MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 209

also, it would be a proof that he did not live in the
former either, but only dreamed in it. That lack of heed
to what is going on before our eyes, and the artful dis
traction to other objects of the attention that is everywhere
aroused, would be the best thing that an enemy of our
independence could wish to find. If he is sure that
nothing will set us thinking, he can do anything he wishes
with us, as if we were lifeless tools. It is precisely this
thoughtlessness that accustoms itself to anything ; but
where clear and comprehensive thought, and in that
thought the image of what ought to be, always remains
watchful, there is no question of becoming accustomed
to such things.

183. These addresses have in the first place invited you,
and they will invite the whole German nation, in so far
as it is possible at the present time to assemble the nation
around a speaker by means of the printed book, to come
to a definite decision and to be at one with themselves
in their own minds on the following questions :

(1) Whether it is true or untrue that there is a German
nation, and that its continued existence in its peculiar
and independent nature is at the present time in danger ;

(2) Whether it is worth the trouble, or not worth the
trouble, to maintain this nation ;

(3) Whether there is any sure and thorough means of
maintaining it, and what this means is.

184. It was hitherto a custom of long standing among
us that, when any earnest word was uttered, either to
an audience or in print, those who never got beyond
polite conversation took possession of the word and
transformed it into an amusing subject of talk to relieve
their boredom. Now, I have not noticed, as I have on
former occasions, that those around me have made such
a use of the addresses I am now delivering ; but I have not

14

210 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

acquainted myself with the current tone of the social
gatherings in the field of books — I mean the literary
papers and other journals — and I do not know whether
they may be expected to take me in joke or in earnest.
However this may be, it has at any rate not been my
intention to joke, or to set in motion once more the wit
which this age of ours is known to possess.

185. A custom that took deeper root among us and
became almost second nature — so much so that not to
observe it was almost unheard-of — was that the Germans
regarded the introduction of any topic as an invitation to
everyone who had a mouth to have his own say about it,
quickly and on the spot, and to inform us whether he was
of the same opinion or not ; and when the vote had been
taken in this way the whole thing was over, and public
conversation felt bound to proceed with haste to another
subject. In this way all literary discussion among the
Germans transformed itself, like Echo in the ancient
fable, into nothing but pure sound, without any body
or bodily substance. We know how it is in the personal
intercourse of third-rate society, and so it was in this
literary fellowship ; the only thing that mattered was
that the human voice should go on sounding, and that
each one should take up the ball of conversation and with
out a pause throw it to his neighbour ; but what was said
did not matter in the least. Now, if that is not being
without character and un-German, what is ? Nor has
it been my intention to do homage to this custom and
merely keep alive public discussion. I have long ago
sufficiently performed my own share in this public
conversation — though only incidentally, my purpose
having been different — and I think I might at last be
absolved from any further contribution. I do not want to
know on the spot what A or B thinks about the questions

MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 211

that have been raised here, i.e., what he has hitherto
thought about them, or not thought. He must consider
it for himself and think deeply about it, until his judg
ment is ready and completely clear, and he must take
the necessary time for that purpose ; if he is still lacking
in the requisite preliminary knowledge, and in the full
degree of culture that is required before a judgment
can be formed in these matters, he must further take time
to make good these deficiencies. If anyone has his
judgment ready and clear in this way, we do not exactly
insist that he shall deliver it publicly. Should it agree
with what has been said here — well, it has been said
already and does not need saying twice. Only he who
can say something different and better is called upon to
speak. On the other hand, what has been said here
must be really lived and put into practice by each one
in his own way and according to his own circumstances.

1 86. Least of all, in conclusion, has it been my inten
tion to lay these addresses as an exercise in composition
before our German masters of doctrine and writing, so
that they may correct them and I may learn in this way
what promise, if any, there is in my work. In this
respect also plenty of good doctrine and advice has
already been directed towards me and, if improvement
were to be expected, it ought to have shown itself by now.

187. No, my intention in the first place was to be a
guide among the swarm of questions and investigations
and the host of contradictory opinions concerning them,
in which educated men among us have hitherto been
tossed about, and to lead as many men as I could to a
point where they might take a firm stand, to the point
which concerns us most intimately — the point of our own
common interests. My intention was to bring them in
this one matter to a firm opinion which might remain

212 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

unshaken, and to a clearness in which they might really

see their way. However much else might be a matter of

! dispute among them, my intention was to unite them in

\this one matter at least, and to make them of one mind.

j It was my intention, finally, to bring this out as one

certain characteristic of the German, viz., that he is a

man who has appreciated the need of forming an opinion

for himself about that which concerns Germans ; and to

make it clear that a man who does not want to hear or to

think anything about this subject may rightly be regarded,

from now on, as not belonging to us.

1 88. The creation of a firm opinion of this kind, and
the association and mutual comprehension of divers
persons on this subject, will do two things. It will be
the direct means of redeeming our character, by removing
that lack of concentration which is so unworthy of us,
and at the same time it will become a powerful means
of attaining our main object, the introduction of the new
national education. It was just because we ourselves,
individually and collectively, were never of one opinion,
but wanted one thing to-day and something different
tomorrow, and because each one made the clamour
more confused by shouting something different — it was
for this reason that our governments, who to be sure
listened to us, and often listened more attentively than
was advisable, became confused and swayed to and fro
just like our own opinion. If our common affairs are
at last to pursue a firm and certain course, what is there
to prevent us from beginning at once with ourselves and
setting the example of firmness and decision ? When
once a united and unchanging opinion makes itself heard,
when a definite need announces itself as a general need and
makes itself felt — the need of a national education, as we
assume it will be — I am quite sure that our governments

MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 213

will listen to us ; they will help us, if we show the inclina
tion to allow ourselves to be helped. At any rate, if
they did not, we would then, and not before, have the
right to complain about them ; at the present time,
when our governments are pretty much as we want them
to be, it ill becomes us to complain.

189. Whether there is a sure and thorough means of
preserving the German nation, and what this means may
be, is the most important of the questions which I have
submitted to this nation for decision. My object in
answering the question, and in stating the reasons for my
way of answering it, was not to say what the final judgment
will be — that could not be of any use, because everyone
who is to have a hand in this matter must have convinced
himself in his own mind by his own activity — on the con
trary, my object was only to stimulate men to reflect for
themselves and form their own judgment. From this point
onwards I must leave each man to settle it for himself.
One warning I can give and nothing more ; do not
let yourselves be deceived by the shallow and superficial
thoughts which are in circulation even on this subject ; do
not let yourselves be restrained from deep reflection, and
do not accept the empty consolations that are offered.

190. For example, long before the most recent events,
we had to hear, in advance as it were, a saying which since
then has frequently been repeated in our ears : that even
if our political independence were lost we should still
keep our language and our literature, and thereby always
remain a nation ; so we could easily console ourselves for
the loss of everything else.

But, first of all, what basis is there for hoping that we
shall keep our language even if we lose our political
independence ? Surely those who say this do not
ascribe this miraculous power to their own persuasions

214 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

and admonitions when addressed to their children, their
children's children, and to all the centuries to come.
Those men now living and mature, who have accustomed
themselves to speaking, writing, and reading in the
German language, will no doubt go on doing so ; but
what will the next generation do, and, more important
still, the third generation ? What counterpoise do we
propose to place in the hearts of these generations that
will hold the scale against their desire to please, by speech
and writing, the race with which all glory rests and which
has all favours to distribute ? Have we, then, never
heard of a language l which is the first in the world,
although it is known that the first works in that language
are still to be written ; and do we not already see before
our eyes that writings are appearing in it by whose con
tents the authors hope to find favour ? The example of
two other languages is brought forward in support, one
of the ancient and one of the modern world, which, in
spite of the political destruction of the peoples who spoke
them, continued to exist as living languages. I do not
intend even to examine the manner in which they have
continued to exist ; but this much is clear at first sight,
that both languages had something in them which ours
does not possess, and by means of this they found favour
with their conquerors, which our language can never
find. If these vain comforters had looked about them
better, they would have found another example which,
in our opinion, is entirely to the point here, viz., the
language of the Wends. This, too, has continued to
exist during all the centuries in wriich the people that
speaks it has been deprived of its freedom — it exists, that

1 [Fichte seems here to be referring ironically to French and to those
Germans who were writing in that language in order to curry favour with
Napoleon.]

MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 217

is to say, in the wretched hovels of the serf bound to the
soil, so that he may bemoan his fate in his own language
which his oppressor does not understand.

But let us suppose that our language remains a living
and a literary language and so preserves its literature ;
what sort of literature can that be, the literature of a
people without political independence ? What does a"
sensible writer want, and what can he want ? Nothing
else but to influence public life and the life of all, and to
form and reshape it according to his vision ; and if he
does not want to do this, everything he says is empty
sound to tickle the ears of the indolent. He wants to
think originally and from the root of spiritual life for
those who act just as originally, i.e., govern. He can,
therefore, only write in a language in which the governors
think, in a language in which the work of government
is carried on, in the language of a people that forms an
independent State. For what is the ultimate aim of all
our efforts even in regard to the most abstract sciences ?
Admitting that the immediate objects of these efforts is
to propagate the science from generation to generation
and to maintain it in the world, the question arises :
Why should it be maintained ? Obviously only in order
to shape the life of all and the whole human order of
things when the right time comes. That is its ultimate
object ; hence, every effort in science indirectly serves the
State, though it may be only in a remote future. If it
abandons this aim, it loses its worth and its independence.
But he who sets this aim before him must write in the
language of the dominant race.

191. Just as it is true beyond doubt that, wherever a[
separate language is found, there a separate nation exists, \
which has the right to take independent charge of its
affairs and to govern itself ; so one can say, on the other

214 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

hand, that, where a people has ceased to govern itself, it
is equal]y bound to give up its language and to coalesce
with its conquerors, in order that there may be unity
and internal peace and complete oblivion of relationships
which no longer exist. Even a semi-intelligent leader of
such a mixture of races must insist on this ; and we may
be quite sure that in our case the insistence will not be
lacking. Until this amalgamation has taken place,
approved school-books will be translated into the lan
guage of the barbarians, i.e., those who are too stupid to
learn the language of the dominant race, and who thereby
exclude themselves from all influence on public affairs
and condemn themselves to lifelong subjection. These
persons, who have sentenced themselves to silence con
cerning actual events, will be permitted to exercise their
oratorical skill on the disputes of a fictitious world, or to
imitate in their own way obsolete and ancient forms ;
proofs of the former condition may be found in the case
of the ancient language that was cited above as an example,
and of the latter in the case of the modern language.
Such a literature we might perhaps retain for some time
yet ; and with such a literature let him console himself
who has no better consolation. But, as to those who
might be capable of playing the man, of seeing the truth,
and of becoming aroused by the sight of it to decision
and action — that they should be kept in indolent slumber
by such a worthless consolation, which would be the very
thing to serve the purpose of an enemy of our independence,
that is what I should like to prevent if I could.

192. So we are promised the continuance of a German
literature for future generations ! In order to form a
better judgment of the hopes that we can entertain in
this matter, it would be very profitable to look about us
and see whether we still have at this moment a German

MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 217

literature in the true sense of the word. The noblest
privilege and the most sacred function of the man of
letters is this : to assemble his nation and to take counsel
with it about its most important affairs. But especially
in Germany this has always been the exclusive function
of the man of letters, because Germany was split up into
several separate States, and was held together as a common
whole almost solely by the instrumentality of the man of
letters, by speech and writing. In the most special and
urgent way does it become his function at the present
time, now that the last external bond which united the
Germans, the imperial constitution, has also been de
stroyed. If it should now be evident — we are not speaking
here of something we know or fear, but only of a possible
case, which we must nevertheless take into consideration
in advance — if it should, I say, be evident that State
officials in the separate States were already so obsessed by
anxiety, fear, and terror, that they first forbade such
voices to make themselves heard or prohibited the
spreading of the message, voices which assumed that a
nation was still in existence and addressed themselves
to it ; then, that would be a proof that we already had
no German men of letters at work, and wre should know
what our prospects would be for any literature in the
future.

193. Now, what could it be that these people are
afraid of ? Perhaps that this man or that will not be
pleased to hear voices of that kind. Then, at any rate
they would have chosen the time badly for their tender
consideration. Pamphlets libelling and degrading the
fatherland, insipid praises of what is foreign, they are
plainly unable to prevent ; then let them not be so strict
against a word for the fatherland which makes itself rjprd
in between. It is quite possible that all are not equally

2i 8 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

willing to hear all things ; but at this time we cannot
concern ourselves with that ; we are urged on by necessity,
and we must say just what necessity orders us to say.
We are fighting for life ; do they want us to walk delicately,
lest some robe of state be covered with the dust we may
raise ? We are sinking in the water-floods ; are we to
refrain from calling for help, lest some weak-nerved
neighbour may be alarmed ?

194. For, who are they who might not like to hear it,
and on what condition might they not like to hear it ?
In every case it is only obscurity and darkness which
cause alarm. Every terrifying vision vanishes when one
gazes at it firmly. With the same unconcern and direct
ness, with which we have hitherto analysed every subject
that has occurred in these addresses, let us look this
terror, too, in the face.

We must assume either that the being 1 to whom at the
present time the conduct of a great part of the world's
affairs has fallen is a truly great soul, or we must assume
the contrary ; no third assumption is possible. In the
first case : on what is all human greatness based, if not
on the independence and originality of the person and
on the fact that the person is not an artificial product of
his age, but a growth out of the eternal and spontaneous
spirit-world, which has grown up just as it is ? Is not
greatness based on the fact that to one person a new and
individual view of the universe has dawned, and that this
person has the firm will and the iron strength to impose
his view on the actual world ? But it is quite impossible
for such a soul not to honour in peoples and individuals
external to himself that in which his own internal great
ness consists, viz., independence, constancy, and indivi
duality of existence. In proportion as the great soul feels

1 [Napoleon.]

MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 219

sure of his own greatness and trusts thereto, he disdains to
rule over a people with a wretched servile spirit or to be a
giant among dwarfs ; he disdains the thought that he must
first degrade men in order to rule over them ; he is oppressed
by the sight of degeneration round about him. Not to
be able to respect men causes him pain ; but every
thing that elevates and ennobles his brother men and
places them in a worthier light is a cause of satisfaction to
his own noble spirit and is his greatest delight. Are we
to believe that such a soul would note with displeasure
that the upheavals which the present times have brought
about are being used to arouse an ancient and honourable
nation from its deep slumber — a nation that is the stem
from which most of the peoples of modern Europe have
sprung, and which is the creator of them all — and to induce
it to lay hold of a sure means of preservation in order to
raise itself from ruin — a means which ensures at the same
time that it will never sink again, and that it will raise
all the other peoples along with itself ? We are here not
inciting people to riotous measures ; we are rather warning
people against them as sure to lead to ruin. We are ,
pointing out a firm and unchangeable foundation, on
which the highest and purest morality, such as was never
yet seen among men, may be built up at last for the world
in one people and assured for all time to come, and which
may thence be spread abroad among all other peoples.
We are pointing the way to a regeneration of the human
race, a way to turn earthly and sensuous creatures into
pure and noble spirits. Does anyone think that such a
proposal could be felt as an insult by a mind that is itself
pure and noble and great, or by anyone who forms him
self after that pattern ?

What, on the other hand, would be the assumption
of those who entertained this fear and admitted it by

220 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

their actions, and what would they proclaim to all the
world as their assumption ? They would acknowledge
that they believed we were ruled over by an enemy of
mankind, by a very base and petty Principle, alarmed by
every stirring of independent strength and unable to
hear of morality, religion, or ennoblement of souls without
anxiety; because nothing but the degradation of men,
their stupor, and their vices would make his position
safe and give him hope of maintaining himself. With
this belief of theirs, which would add to our other miseries
the crushing shame of being ruled over by such a man as
this, are we now forthwith to proclaim ourselves in agree
ment, and are we to act in accordance with it before we
have clear proof that it is true ?

Let us suppose the worst : that they are in the right
and not we, who show by our action that we make the
former assumption. Is, then, the human race really to
be degraded and to go under as a favour to one man who
profits by the fall and to those who are afraid ? Is one,
whose heart bids him do it, not to be allowed to warn
them of destruction ? Suppose, not only that they were
in the right, but that one should resolve, in the sight of
this generation and of posterity, to admit that they were
right and to deliver aloud on one's self the judgment
just expressed ; what, then, would be the greatest
ultimate consequence for the unwelcome warner ? Do
they know anything greater than death ? This awaits us
all in any case, and from the beginning of humanity
noble souls have defied the danger of death for the sake
of less important matters — for when was there ever a
higher matter than the present one ? Who has the right
to intervene in an undertaking that is begun with full
knowledge of this danger ?

195. Should there be such people — though I hope not—

MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 221

among us Germans, they would offer their necks without
invitation, without thanks, and, as I hope, without find
ing acceptance, to the yoke of spiritual serfdom. They
would bitterly revile their own country in flattering its
oppressor ; they would think that diplomatic, for they
do not know the mind of true greatness, but measure its
thoughts by the thoughts suggested by their own petti
ness ; thus they would make use of literature, for which
they know no other use, to pay their court by slaughtering
it as a sacrificial victim. We, on the other hand, praise
the greatness of the soul, with whom power lies, much
more by the fact of our confidence and our courage than
words could ever do. Throughout the entire domain of
the whole German language, wherever our voice rings out
free and unrestrained, it thus invokes Germans by the
very fact of its existence : No one wants your oppression,
your servility, your slavish subjection ; but your indepen
dence, your true freedom, your elevation, and your
ennoblement are wanted ; for it is not forbidden to discuss
these things openly with you and to show you the infall
ible means of attaining them. If this voice finds a hear
ing and has the result intended, it will set up a memorial
of this greatness, and of our faith in it, for all centuries
to come — a memorial which time cannot destroy, but
which will grow greater, and spread more widely, with each
new generation. Who dares to set himself against the
attempt to erect such a memorial ?

So, instead of consoling ourselves for the loss of our
independence with the promise of a period of bloom for
our literature in the future, and instead of allowing our
selves to be deterred by consolations of that kind from
seeking a means to restore our independence, we prefer
to ask whether those Germans, to whom a kind of guardian
ship of literature has fallen, still allow, even in these days,

222 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

a literature in the true sense of the word to the other
Germans who themselves write and read, and whether
they consider that such a literature is still allowed in
Germany or not. But some decision will shortly have
to be made as to what they really think about it.

196. After all, the first thing that we have to do, in
order merely to maintain ourselves in existence until the
time comes for the complete and thorough regeneration
of our race, is this ; to provide ourselves with character,
and to prove it first of all by thinking for ourselves and
so forming a firm opinion of our true situation and of
the sure means of improving it. The worthlessness of
the consolation to be derived from the continued exis
tence of our language and literature has been demon
strated. There are, however, other delusive views which
have not yet been mentioned in these addresses, and which
hinder the formation of that firm opinion. It is appro
priate to our purpose to consider these views as well ;
but we reserve this subject for the next address.

THIRTEENTH ADDRESS1

THE SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED

197. AT the end of the preceding address we said that
there were in circulation among us a number of worth
less thoughts and deceptive theories as to the affairs of
peoples, and that this prevented the Germans from
forrrftng such a definite view of their present situation
as would .be in accordance with their own special char
acteristics. As these vain phantoms are being held up
for public veneration with great zeal just at present, and
as they might be embraced by many people now that so
much else has begun to topple over, solely in order to fill
up the places that have become vacant, it seems appro
priate to our purpose to subject these phantoms to a
more serious examination than their intrinsic importance
would deserve.

198. To begin with and before all things : the first7
original, and truly natural boundaries of States are
beyond doubt their internal boundaries. Those who
speak the same language are joined to each other by a
multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long
before any human art begins ; they understand each other

1 [Fichte's manuscript of this address, after having received the
imprimatur at the censor's office in Berlin, was mislaid and lost. As Fichte
had meanwhile burnt the loose sheets which he had used in preparing the
address, he was compelled to rewrite it as best he could.]

223

224 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

j and have the power of continuing to make themselves
understood more and more clearly ; they belong to
gether and are by nature one and an inseparable whole.
Such a whole, if it wishes to absorb and mingle with itself
any other people of different descent and language, cannot
do so without itself becoming confused, in the beginning
at any rate, and violently disturbing the even progress
ofJts__jui!t«^er^>From this internal boundary, which is

/ drawn by the spiritual nature of man himself, the marking
of the external boundary by dwelling-place results as
a consequence ; and in the natural view of things it is
not because men dwell between certain mountains and
rivers that they are a people, but, on the contrary, men
dwell together — and, if their luck has so arranged it,
are protected by rivers and mountains — because ( they
were a people already by a law of nature which is much
higher.

199. Thus was the German nation placed — sufficiently
united within itself by a common language and a common
way of thinking, and sharply enough severed from the
other peoples — in the middle of Europe, as a wall to
divide races not akin. The German nation was numerous
and brave enough to protect its boundaries against
any foreign attack ; it was left to itself, and by its whole
way of thinking was little inclined to take notice of the
neighbouring peoples, to interfere in their affairs, or to
provoke them to enmity by disturbances. As time went
on, a kind fortunejpreserved it fcom-dixect participation
in the Conquest of other worlds — that event which, more
than any other7~has been the basis of the development
taken by modern world-history, of the fates of peoples,
and of the largest part of their ideas and opinions. Since
that event, and not before, Christian Europe, which
hitherto, without being clearly conscious of it, had been

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 225

one, and by joint enterprises had shown itself to be one —
Christian Europe, I say, split itself into various separate
parts. Since that event, and not before, there was a
prey in sight which anyone might obtain ; and each one
lusted after it in the same way, because all were able to
make use of it in the same way ; and each one was envious
on seeing it in the hands of another. Now, and not
before, was there a reason for secret enmity and lust for
war on the part of all against all. Moreover, now, and
not before, did.it_become profitable for peoples to incor
porate with themselves peoples of other descent and other
languages, by conquest or, if that were not possible, by
alliances, and to appropriate their forces. A people
that has remained true to nature may have the wish,
when its abode becomes too narrow for it, to enlarge
it by conquest of the neighbouring soil in order to gain
more room, and then it will drive out the former inhabi
tants. It may have the wish to exchange a harsh and
unfruitful region for a milder and more fortunate one,
and in this case, too, it will drive out the former owners.
It may, if it should degenerate, undertake mere pillaging
raids in which, without craving after the soil or its
inhabitants, it merely takes possession of every useful
thing, sweeps the countries clear and then departs.
Finally, it may regard the former inhabitants of the
conquered soil as one of the useful things and allot them
as slaves to individuals. But, for it to attach to itself V
as a component part of the State the foreign population I
just as it is, that will not profit it in the least, and it will J
never be tempted to do so.

But if the case is thus : that there is a tempting com
mon prey to be fought for and to be won from an equally
strong or even stronger rival ; then the calculation is
different. It matters not how much or how little the

15

226 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

conquered people may blend with us ; we can at any
rate make use of their fists to overcome the opponent
we have to rob, and every man is welcome to us as an
addition to our fighting strength. Now, suppose that
some wise man, who wished for peace and quiet, had had
his eyes opened to this state of affairs ; from what source
could he expect quiet to come ? Obviously not from
the limitation set by nature to human greed, viz., that
superfluity is of no benefit to anyone ; for there was a
prey which tempted everyone. Just as little could he
expect peace to come from the will to set a limit to one's
self ; for, where everyone grabs for himself everything
that he can, anyone who limits himself must of necessity
go under. No one wants to share with another what he
then owns himself ; everyone wants to rob the other of
what he has, if he possibly can. If one of them is quiet,
it is only because he does not think himself strong enough
to begin a quarrel ; he will certainly begin it as soon as
he perceives the necessary strength in himself.
' Hence, the. only mean* of maintaining peace is this :
that no one shall acquire enough power to be able to
disturb the peace, and that each one shall know that
there is just as much strength to resist on the other side
as there is to attack on his side ; and that thus there
may arise a balance and counterbalance of the total power,
whereby alone, now that all other means have vanished,
each one is kept in possession of what he has at present
and all are kept in peace. This well-known system of
a balance jrf power in Europe, therefore, assumes two
things : first, a prey to which no one at all has any right,
but for which all have a like desire ; and second, the
universal, ever-present, and unceasingly active lust for
booty. Indeed, on these assumptions, this balance of
power would be the only means of maintaining peace,

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 227

if only one could find the second means, namely, that of
creating the equilibrium and transforming it from an
empty thought into a thing of reality.

200. But were these assumptions in fact to be made
universally and without any exception ? Had not the
mighty German nation, in the middle of Europe, kept
its hands off this prey, and was it not untainted by any
craving for it, and almost incapable of making a claim to
it ? If only the German nation had remained united, ~
with a common will and a common strength ! Then,
though the other Europeans might have wanted to murder
each other on every sea and shore, and on every island
too, in the middle of Europe the firm wall of the Germans
would have prevented them from reaching each other.
Here 'peace would have remained, and the Germans
would have maintained themselves, and with themselves
also a part of the other European peoples, in quiet and
prosperity.

20 1- Thatjjiings should remain thus did not suit the
selfishness of foreign countries, whose calculations did not
look more than one moment ahead. They^found German
bravery useful in waging their wars and German hands
useful to snatch the booty from their rivals. A means'")
had to be found to attain this end, and foreign cunning I
won an easy victory over German ingenuousness and lack I
of suspicion. It was foreign countries which first made
use of the division of mind produced by religious disputes
in Germany — Germany, which presented on a small

scale the features of Christian Europe as a whole

foreign countries, I say, made use of these disputes to
break up the close inner unity of Germany into separate
and disconnected parts. Foreign countries had already.,
destroyed their own unity naturally, by splitting into]
parts over a common prey ; and now they artificially'1

228 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

destroyed German unity. Thev knew how to present
each of these separate States that had thus arisen in the
lap of the one nation— which had no enemy except those
foreign countries themselves, and no concern except the
common one of setting itself with united strength against
their seductive craft and cunning— foreign countries, I say,
knew how to present each of these States to the others as a
natural enemy, against which each State must be perpetu
ally on its guard. On the other hand, they knew how to
make themselves appear to the German States as natural
allies against the danger threatening them from their
own countrymen— as allies with whom alone they would
themselves stand or fall, and whose enterprises they must
in turn support with all their might. It was only be
cause of this artificial bond that all the disputes which
might arise about any matter whatever in the Old World
or the New became disputes of the German races in their
relation to each other. Every war, no matter what its
cause, had to be fought out on German soil and with
German blood ; every disturbance of the balance had
to be adjusted in that nation to which the whole fountain-
head of such relationships was unknown ; and the German
States, whose separate existence was in itself contrary
to all nature and reason, were compelled, in order ^that
they might count for something, to act as make-weights
to the chief forces in the scale of the European equili
brium, whose movement they followed blindly and with
out any will of their own. Just as in many States abroad
the citizens are designated as belonging to this or that
foreign party, or voting for this or that foreign alliance,
but no name is found for those who belong to the party
of their own country, so it was with the Germans ; for
long enough they belonged only to some foreign party
or other, and one seldom came across a man who sup-

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 229

ported the party of the Germans and was of the opinion
that this country ought to make an alliance with itself.

202. This, then, is the true origin and meaning, this the
result for Germany and for the world, of that notorious
doctrine of a balance of power to be artificially main
tained between the European States. If Christian Europe
had remained one, as it ought to be and as it originally was,
there would never have been any occasion to think of such
a thing. That which is one rests upon itself and supports !
itself, and does not split up into conflicting forces which^
must be brought to an equilibrium. Only when Europe
became divided and without a law did the thought
of a balance acquire a meaning from necessity. To ^
this Europe, divided and without a law, Germany did not \
belong. If only Germany at any rate had remained onef^\
it would have rested on itself in the centre of the civilized /
world like the sun in the centre of the universe ; it would jj
have kept itself at peace, and with itself the adjacent
countries ; and without any artificial measures it would
have kept everything in equilibrium by the mere fact of
its natural existence. It was only the deceit of foreign ~"j
countries that dragged Germany into their own lawless- /
ness and their own disputes ; it was they who taught I
Germany the treacherous notion of the balance of power, I
for they knew it to be one of the most effective means of;
deluding Germany as to its own true advantage and of
keeping it in that state of delusion. This aim is now
sufficiently attained, and the result that was intended is
now complete before our eyes. Even if we cannot do away
with this result, why should we not at any rate extirpate
the source of it in our own understanding, which is now
almost the only thing over which we still have sovereign
power ? Why should the old dream still be placed
before our eyes, now that disaster has awakened us from

230 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

sleep ? Why should we not now at any rate see the truth
and perceive the only means that could have saved us ?
Perhaps our descendants may dp what we see ought to
be. done, just as we now suffer because our fathers dreamed.
Let us understand that the conception of an equilibrium
to be artificially maintained might have been a consoling
dream for foreign countries amid the guilt and evil that
oppressed them; but that this conception, being an entirely
foreign product, ought never to have taken root in the mind
of a German, and that the Germans ought never to have
been so situated that it could take root among them.
Let us understand that now at any rate we must perceive
the utter worthlessness of such a conception, and must see
that the salvation of all is to be found, not in it, but solely
\ in the unity of the Germans among themselves.

203. Just as foreign to the German is the freedom of
the .seas, which is so frequently preached in our days,
whether what is intended be real freedom or merely the
power to exclude everyone else from it. Throughout the
course of centuries, while all other nations were in rivalry,
the German showed little desire to participate in this
freedom to any great extent, and he will never do so.
Moreover, he is Qot in need of it. The abundant supplies
of his own land, together with his own diligence, afford
him all that is needed in the life of a civilized man ; nor
does he lack skill in the art of making his resources serve
that purpose. As for acquiring the only true advantage
that wrorld-trade brings in its train, viz., the increase
in scientific knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants,
his own scientific spirit will not let him lack a means of
exchange. O, if only his kindly fortune had preserved
the German from indirect participation in the booty of
other worlds, as it preserved him from direct participa
tion ! If only we had not been led by our credulity,

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 233

and by the craving for a life as fine and as distingmeone
as that of other peoples, to make necessaries of the waiof
produced in foreign parts which we could do without ;
if only we had made conditions tolerable for our free
fellow-citizen in regard to the wares we can less easily
do without, instead of wishing to draw a profit from the
sweat and blood of a poor slave across the seas ! Then,
at any rate, we should not ourselves have furnished the
pretext for our present fate ; war would not have been
waged against us as purchasers, nor would we have been
ruined because we are a market-place. Almost ten years
ago, before anyone could foresee what has since happened,
Germans were advised l to make themselves inde
pendent of world-trade, and to turn themselves into a
closed commercial State. J This proposal ran counter to
our habits, and especially to our idolatrous veneration
of coined metals ; it was passionately attacked and
thrust aside. Since then we have been learning, in
dishonour and under the compulsion of a foreign power,
to do without those things, and far more than those
things, which we then protested we could not do with
out, though we might have done so then in freedom
and with the greatest honour to ourselves. O, that we
might seize this opportunity, since enjoyment at least
is not corrupting us, to correct our ideas once for all !
O, that we might at last see that all those swindling
theories about world-trade and manufacturing for the
world-market, though they suit the foreigner and form
part of the weapons with which he has always made war
on us, have no application to the Germans ; and that,
next to the unity of the Germans among themselves,
their internal autonomy and commercial independence

1 [In 1800 by Fichtc himself, in Der geschlossene Handelsstaat (The
Closed Commercial State).]

230 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

r- the second means for their_sah£ation, andjthrough
anem for the salvation of Europe !

204. Now, at last, let us be bold enough to look at
the deceptive vision of a universal jnonarchy, which
people"ar^egmning~toTroI3"up for public veneration in
place of that equilibrium which for some time has been
growing more and more preposterous, and let us perceive
how hateful and contrary to reason that vision is. Spiri
tual nature was able to present the essence of humanity
in extremely diverse gradations in individuals and in
individuality as a whole, in peoples. Only when each
people, left to itself, develops and forms itself in accord
ance with its own peculiar quality, and only when in
every people each individual develops himself in accord
ance with that common quality, as well as in accordance
with his own peculiar quality — then, and then only,
does the manifestation of divinity appear in its true
mirror as it ought to be ; and only a man who either
entirely lacks the notion of the rule of law and divine
order, or else is an obdurate enemy thereto, could take
upon himself to want to interfere with that law, which
is the highest law in the spiritual world. Only in the
invisible qualities of nations, which are hidden from
their own eyes — qualities as the means whereby these
nations remain in touch with the source of original
life — only therein is to be found the guarantee of their
present and future worth, virtue, and merit. If these
qualities are dulled by admixture and worn away by
friction, the L flatness ~l:hat results will bring about a
separation from spiritual nature, and this in its turn will
cause all men to be fused together to their uniform and
conjoint destruction. As for the writers who console us
for alf our ills with the prospect that we, too, shall be
subjects of the new universal monarchy that is beginning

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 233

—are we to believe them when they say that someone
or other has decided upon such a grinding together of
all the germs of what is human in humanity, in order to
press the unresisting dough into some new form, and
that so monstrous an act of brutality or enmity against
the human race is possible in this age of ours ? Even
if, in the first place, we were willing to make up our
minds to believe such an utterly incredible thing, the
further question arises : By what instrument is such a
plan to be carried out ? What sort of people is it to
be which, in the present state of European culture, shall
conquer the world for some new universal monarch ?
For many centuries now the peoples of Europe have ceased
to be savages or to rejoice in destructive activity for its
own sake. All men seek behind war a final peace, behind
exertion rest, behind confusion order ; and all men want
to see their career crowned with the peace of a quiet
and domestic life. For a time they may be made enthu
siastic for war even by the mere prospect of advantage
to the nation ; but when the call comes again and
again in the same fashion, the delusion vanishes and
with it the feverish strength it produced. The longing
for peace and order returns, and the question arises :
For what purpose am I doing and bearing all this ?
All these feelings a world-conqueror in our time would
first have to stamp out ; and, as the present age by its
nature does not produce a race of savages, he would have
to create one with deliberate art. But more would
remain to be done. A man who has been accustomed
from youth upwards to cultivated and settled countries,
to prosperity and order, finds pleasure in these things
wherever he sees them, if he is but permitted to be at
peace for a little while ; for they represent to him the
background of his own longing, which after all can never

234 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

be quite rooted out ; and it is a source of pain to himself
when he is obliged to destroy them. To offset this kindly
feeling, so deeply implanted in man as a social being,
and this grief and sorrow at the evils which the soldier
brings upon the countries he conquers, a counterpoise
must be found. There is no other than the lust for
booty. If it becomes the soldier's dominating motive to
acquire a fortune for himself, and if he becomes accus
tomed, when devastating flourishing countries, to think
of nothing but what he may gain for himself from the
general wretchedness, then it is to be expected that the
feelings of sympathy and pity will become silent in him.
In addition to that barbarous brutality, a world-con
queror of our time would have to train his people to
coldblooded and deliberate lust for booty ; he would
not have to punish extortions, but rather to encourage
them. Moreover, the disgrace that naturally adheres to
such a thing would first of all have to be cleared away,
and robbery would have to be looked upon as the honour
able sign of a superior mind ; it would have to be reckoned
among great deeds and pave the way to all dignities and
honours. Where is there in modern Europe a nation so
lacking in honour that it could be trained up in this way ?
Even supposing that a world-conqueror succeeded in
reshaping a nation in this fashion ; the very means he takes
to do it will frustrate the attainment of his object. Such
a people will thenceforward regard the human beings,
the countries, and the works of art that they have acquired
by conquest, as nothing more than a means of making
money with all speed, so that they may move on and make
more money. They will extort rapidly, and when they
have sucked the juice out of a thing they will throw it
away, regardless of what may happen to it ; they will
cut down the tree whose fruits they want to reach. For

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 235

a man who works with such tools as these all the arts of
seduction, persuasion, and deception will be in vain.
Only from a distance can such men deceive anyone ; as
soon as they are seen at close quarters, their brutal
roughness and their shameless and insolent lust for
booty will be obvious even to the feeblest mind ; and
the detestation of the whole human race will cry aloud
upon them. With such tools as these one can indeed
plunder and lay waste the earth, and grind it down to
stupor and chaos, but one can never establish it as a
universal monarchy.

205. The ideas wre have mentioned, and all ideas of
this kind, are products of a form of thinking which merely
plays a game with itself and sometimes, too, gets caught
in its own cobwebs — a form of thinking which is unworthy
of German thoroughness and earnestness. At best,
some of these ideas, as, for example, that of a political
equilibrium, are serviceable guiding-lines to enable one
to find one's way about in the extensive and confused
multiplicity of phenomena and to set it in order ; but
to believe that these things exist in nature, or to strive
to realize them, is the same as to expect to find the poles,
the meridians, and the tropics, by which our survey of
the earth is guided, actually marked and indicated on the
surface of the globe. May it become the custom in our
nation, not merely to think idly and as it were experi
mentally, just to see what will come of it, but to think
in such a way that what we think shall be true and have
a real effect in life ! Then it will be superfluous to warn
people against such phantoms of a political wisdom whose
origin is foreign and which only deludes the Germans.

This thoroughness, earnestness, and weightiness in
our way of thinking, once we have made it our own, will
show itself in our life as well. We are defeated ; whether

236 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

we are now to be despised as well, and rightly despised,
whether in addition to all other losses we are to lose
our honour also — that will still depend on ourselves.
The fight with weapons has ended ; there arises now,
if we so will it, the new fight of principles, of morals, of
character.

206. Let us give our guests a picture of faithful devo
tion to friends and fatherland, of incorruptible uprightness
and love of duty, of all civic and domestic virtues, to take
home with them as a friendly gift from their hosts ;
for they will return home at last some time or other.
Let us be careful not to invite them to despise us ; there
would, however, be no surer way for us to do this than if
we either feared them beyond measure or gave up our
own way of life and strove to resemble them in theirs.
Be it far from us as individuals to be so unmannerly as
to provoke or irritate individuals ; but, as to the rest, our
safest measure will be to go our own way in all things,
as if we were alone with ourselves, and not to establish
any relation that is not laid upon us by absolute neces
sity ; and the surest means to this will be for each one
to content himself with what the old national conditions
are able to afford him, to take up his share of the common
burden according to his powers, but to look upon any
favour from foreigners as a disgrace and a dishonour.
Unfortunately, it has become an almost general European
custom, and therefore a German custom too, for people
to prefer to descend to the level of others, rather than
to appear what is called singular or noticeable, when the
choice is open to them ; indeed, the whole system of
what are esteemed good manners may perhaps be regarded
as based upon that one principle. Let us Germans at
the present juncture offend rather against this code of
manners than against something higher. Let us remain

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 237

as we are, even though that may be an offence of this
kind ; nay, let us become, if we can, even stronger and
more determined, as we ought to be. It is the custom to
tell us that we are sorely lacking in quickness and ease and
grace, and that we grow too serious, too heavy, and too
ponderous over everything. Let us not be in the least
ashamed of this, but rather strive to deserve the accusa
tion more and more fully and to an ever greater extent.
Let us confirm ourselves in this resolve by the conviction,
which is easily to be attained, that in spite of all the
trouble we take, we shall never do right in the eyes of
our accusers, unless we cease entirely to be ourselves,
which is the same thing as ceasing to exist at all. There
are certain peoples who, while preserving their own special
characteristics and wishing to have them respected by
others, yet recognize the special characteristics of other
peoples, and permit and encourage their retention. To
such peoples the Germans belong without a doubt ; and
this trait is so deeply marked in their whole life in the
world, both past and present, that very often, in order
to be just both to contemporary foreign countries and to
antiquity, they have been unjust to themselves. Then
there are._other peoples, whose ego is so closely wrapped
up in itself that it never allows them the freedom to
detach themselves for the purpose of taking a cool and
calm view of what is foreign to them, and who are there
fore compelled to believe that there is only one possible
way of existence for a civilized human being, and that is
always the way which some chance or other has indicated
to them alone at the time ; the rest of mankind all over
the world have no other destiny, in their opinion, than to
become just what they are, and ought to be extremely
grateful to them if they take upon themselves the trouble
of moulding them in this way. Between peoples of the ,

238 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

former type there takes place an interaction of culture
and education which is most beneficial to the develop
ment of man as such, and an interpenetration which none
the less allows each one, with the goodwill of the other,
to remain its own self. Peoples of the latter type are
unable to form anything, for they are unable to apprehend
anything in its actual state of existence ; they only want
to destroy everything that exists and to create every
where, except in themselves, a void in which they can
reproduce their own image and never anything else.
Even their apparent acceptance of foreign ways when
they begin is only gracious condescension on the part of
the tutor to the still feeble but promising pupil. Even
the figures of the ancient world that has come to an end
do not please them, until they have clad them in their own
garments ; and they would call them from their graves,
if they had the power, to train them after their own
fashion. Far from me be the presumption of accusing
any existing nation as a whole and without exception of
such narrow-mindedness. Let us rather assume that
here, too, those who express no opinion are the better
sort. But if those who have appeared among us and
expressed their opinions are to be judged by the opinions
they have expressed, it seems to follow that they are to
be placed in the class we have described. As such a
statement appears to require proof, I adduce the following,
passing over in silence the other manifestations of this
spirit which are before the eyes of Europe. We have
been at war with each other ; as for us, we are defeated,
and they are the victors ; that is true, and is admitted ;
with that our opponents might doubtless be contented.
But if anyone among us went on to maintain that never
theless we had had the just cause and deserved the victory,
and that it was to be deplored that victory had not fallen

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 239

to us ; would this be so very wrong, and could those
opponents, who, of course, for their own part may likewise
think what they will, take it amiss that we should be of
this opinion ? But no, we must not dare to think that.
We must at the same time recognize how wrong it is
ever to have a will other than theirs, and to resist them ;
we must bless our defeats as the best thing that could
happen to us, and bless them as our greatest benefactors.
It cannot be otherwise, and they hope this much of our
good sense. But why should I go on expounding what
was expounded with great exactness almost two thousand
years ago, for example, in the Histories of Tacitus ?
That opinion of the Romans as to the relationship of
the conquered barbarians towards them, an opinion which
in their case was founded on a view of things that had
some excuse, the opinion that it was criminal rebellion
and insurrection against divine and human laws to offer
resistance to them, and that their arms could bring
nothing but blessing to the nations, and their chains
nothing but honour — it is this opinion that has been
formed about us in these days ; with great good-nature
they expect us to hold it about ourselves, and they assume
in advance that we do hold it. I do not take these
utterances as evidence of arrogance and scorn ; I can
understand how such opinions may be held in earnest
by people who are very conceited and narrow-minded,
and how they can honestly impute the same belief to
their opponents, just as I believe that the Romans really
thought so ; but I only raise a doubt as to whether those
among us, whose conversion to that way of thinking is
for ever impossible, can reckon upon an agreement of
any kind whatever.

207. We shall bring the deep contempt of foreigners
upon ourselves if in their hearing we accuse each other,

240 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

German races, classes, and persons, of being responsible
for the fate that has befallen every one of us, and bitterly
and passionately reproach each other. In the first place,
all accusations of this kind are for the most part unfair,
unjust, and unfounded. The causes that have brought
about Germany's latest doom we have already indicated ;
these causes have for centuries been native to all German
races without exception in the same way ; the latest
events are not the consequences of any particular error
of any one race or its government ; they have been in
preparation long enough, and might just as well have
happened to us long ago, if it had depended solely on
the causes that lie within our own selves. In this matter
the guilt or innocence of all is, one may say, equally
great, and a reckoning is no longer possible. When the
final result came about in haste, it was found that the
separate German States did not even know themselves,
their powers, and their true situation ; how, then, could
any one of them have the presumption to look beyond its
own borders and pronounce upon the guilt of others a
final judgment based on thorough knowledge ?

208. It may be that in every race of the German
fatherland the blame falls with more reason on one
special class, not because it did not have more insight or
greater ability than all the others, for in that respect
all were equally to blame, but because it pretended that
it had more insight and greater ability, and kept everyone
else away from the work of administration in the various
States. But, even if a reproach of this kind were well
founded, who is to utter it, and why is it necessary to
utter and discuss it, just at this moment, more loudly
and more bitterly then ever ? We see that men of letters
are doing this. If they spoke just as they do now in the
days when all power and all authority were in the hands of

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 241

that class, with the tacit approval of the decisive majority
of the rest of mankind, who can object if they bring to
remembrance what they then said, now that it has been
only too well confirmed by experience ? We hear also
that they bring certain persons by name before the
tribunal of the people, persons who formerly stood at
the head of affairs, that they set forth their incapacity,
their indolence, and their evil will, and clearly show how
from such causes such effects were bound to follow. If,
when power was still in the hands of the accused persons,
and when the evils that were the inevitable result of
their administration could have been warded off, these
writers saw what they now see and expressed it just as
loudly ; if they then accused with the same vigour those
whom they now find guilty, and if they left no means
untried to rescue the fatherland out of their hands,
and if no one listened to them ; then, they do well to
recall to mind the warning that was scornfully rejected.
But, if they have derived their present wisdom only from
the course of events, from which all people since then
have derived with them exactly the same wisdom, why
do they now say what everyone else now knows just as
well ? Or further, if in those days from motives of gain
they flattered, or from motives of fear they remained
silent before, that class and those persons on whom, now
that they have lost powder, they pour the full stream of
denunciation ; then, let them not forget henceforth, when
they are stating the causes of our present miseries, to
put with the nobility and the incompetent ministers and
generals the writers on politics also, who know only after
the event what ought to have been done, just like the
common people, and who flatter the holders of power,
but with malicious joy deride the fallen !

Or do they blame the errors of the past, which for all

16

242 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

their blame is indestructible, only in order that they may
not be repeated in the future ; and is it solely their zeal
to bring about a thorough improvement in human affairs
which makes them so bold in disregarding all considera
tions of prudence and decency ? Gladly would we credit
them with such goodwill, if only they were entitled by
thorough insight and thorough understanding to have
goodwill in this matter. It is not so much the particular
persons who happen to have been in the highest places,
but the connection and complication of the whole, the
whole spirit of the age, the errors, the ignorance, shallow-
ness, timidity, and the uncertain tread inseparable from
these things, it is the whole way of life of the age that has
brought these miseries upon us ; and so it is far less the
persons who have acted than the places ; it is everyone's
fault ; and everyone, even the violent fault-finders
themselves, may assume with great probability that if
they had been in the same place they would have been
forced by their surroundings to much the same end.
Let us not dream so much of deliberate wickedness and
treachery ! Stupidity and indolence are in nearly every
case sufficient to explain the things that have happened ;
and this is a charge of which no one should entirely clear
himself without searching self-examination. Especially in
a state of affairs where there is in the whole mass a very
great fneasure of indolence, the individual who is to force
his way through must possess the power of action in a
very high degree. So, even if the mistakes of individuals
are ever so sharply singled out, that does not in any way
lay bare the cause of the evil ; nor is this cause removed by
avoiding these mistakes in future. So long as men remain
liable to error, they cannot do otherwise than commit
errors ; and even if they avoid those of their predecessors,
in the infinite space of liability to error they will all too

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 243

easily make new errors of their own. Only a complete
regeneration, only the beginning of an entirely new spirit
can help us. If they co-operate for the development of
this new spirit, we shall be ready and willing to give
them credit, not only for goodwill, but also for right and
saving understanding.

209. These mutual reproaches, besides being unjust
and useless, are extremely unwise, and must degrade us
deeply in the eyes of foreigners ; we not only make it
easy for them to find out all about us, but positively
force the knowledge on them in every way. If we never
grow weary of telling them how confused and stale all
things were with us, and how miserably we were governed,
must they not believe that no matter how they behave
towards us they are none the less much too good for us,
and can never become too bad ? Must they not believe
that, because of our great clumsiness and helplessness,
we are bound to accept with the humblest thanks any
and every thing out of the rich store of their art of govern
ment, administration, and legislation that they have
already presented to us, or have in contemplation for us
in the future ? Is there any need for us to confirm their
already not unfavourable opinion of themselves and the
low opinion they have of us ? Do not certain utterances,
which would otherwise have to be taken as evidence of
bitter scorn — for example, that they have been the first
to bring a fatherland to German countries, which previ
ously had none, or that they have abolished that slavish
dependence of persons, as such, on other persons, which
used to be established by law among us — do not such
utterances, when we remember what we ourselves have
said, show themselves as a repetition of our own statements
and an echo of our own flattering speeches ? It is a
disgrace, which we Germans share with no other of the

244 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

European peoples whose fate in other respects has been
similar to ours, that, as soon as ever foreign arms ruled
over us, we behaved as if we had long been awaiting this
moment, and sought to do ourselves a good turn quickly,
before it was too late, by pouring forth a stream of denun
ciation on our governments and our rulers, whom we
had formerly flattered in a way that offended against
good taste, and by railing against everything represented
by the word " fatherland."

210. How shall those of us who are not guilty ward off
the disgrace from our heads and let the guilty ones stand
by themselves ? There is a means. No more scurrilous
denunciations will be printed the moment it is certain
that no more will be bought, and as soon as their authors
and publishers can no longer reckon on readers tempted to
buy them for lack of something better to do, by idle
curiosity and love of gossip, or by the malicious joy of
seeing those men humiliated who at one time instilled
into them the painful feeling of respect. Let everyone
who feels the disgrace hand back with fitting contempt a
libel that is offered him to read ; let him do this, although
he believes he is the only one who acts in this way, until
it becomes the custom among us for every man of honour
to do the same ; and then, without any enforcement of
restrictions on books, we shall soon be free of this scanda
lous portion of our literature.

211. Finally, we debase ourselves most of all before
foreigners when we lay ourselves out to flatter them.
In former days certain persons among us made themselves
contemptible, ludicrous, and nauseating beyond measure
by burning thick incense before our own rulers on every
occasion, and by caring for neither sense nor decency,
neither taste nor good manners, when they thought
there was a chance of delivering a flattering address.

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 245

This practice has ceased at this time, and these paeans of
praise have been transformed in some cases into words
of abuse. However, in order not to get out of practice,
as it were, we gave our clouds of incense another direction
and turned them towards the place where power now
resides. Even the old way — and not only the flattery
itself, but also the fact that it was not declined — could
not but give pain to every serious-minded German ;
still, we kept it to ourselves. Are we now going to make
foreigners also the witnesses of this base craving of ours,
and of the great clumsiness with which we give vent to it ;
and are we thus going to add to the contemptible exhibi
tion of our baseness the ludicrous demonstration of our
lack of adroitness? For, when we set about these things,
we are lacking in all the refinement that the foreigner
possesses ; so as to avoid not being heard, we lay it on
thick and exaggerate everything ; we begin straight
away with deifications and place our heroes among the
stars. Another thing is that we give the impression of
being driven to these paeans of praise chiefly by fear and
terror ; but there is nothing more ridiculous than a
frightened man who praises the beauty and graciousness
of a creature which in fact he takes to be a monster,
and which he merely seeks to bribe by his flattery not to
swallow him up.

212. Or are these hymns of praise perhaps not flattery,
but the genuine expression of reverence and admiration
which they are compelled to pay to the great genius who,
according to them, now directs the affairs of mankind ?
How little they know, in this case too, the character of
true greatness ! In all ages and among all peoples true
greatness has remained the same in this respect, that it
was not vain ; just as, on the other hand, whatever
displayed vanity has always been beyond a doubt base

246 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

and petty. True greatness, resting on itself, finds no
pleasure in monuments erected by contemporaries, or
in being called " The Great," or in the shrieking applause
and praises of the mob ; rather, it rejects these things
with fitting contempt, and awaits first the verdict on
itself from its own indwelling judge, and then the public
verdict from the judgment of posterity. True greatness
has always had this further characteristic : it is filled with
awe and reverence in the face of dark and mysterious
fate, it is mindful of the ever-rolling wheel of destiny,
and never allows itself to be counted great or happy before
its end. Hence, those who hymn its praises contradict
themselves, and by using words they make their words a
lie. If they believed that the object of their pretended
veneration was really great, they would humbly admit
that he was exalted above their acclamations and lauda
tion, and they would honour him by reverent silence.
By making it their business to praise him they show that
in fact they take him to be petty and base, and so vain
that their hymns of praise can give him pleasure, and
that they hope thereby to divert some evil from them
selves, or procure themselves some benefit.

That cry of enthusiasm : " What a sublime genius !
What profound wisdom ! What a comprehensive plan ! "
—what after all does it mean when we look at it properly ?
It means that the genius is so great that we, too, can
fully understand it, the wisdom so profound that we, too,
can see through it, the plan so comprehensive that we,
too, are able to imitate it completely. Hence it means
that he who is praised has about the same measure of
greatness as he who praises ; and yet not quite, for the
latter, of course, understands the former fully and is
superior to him ; hence, he stands above him and, if he
only exerted himself thoroughly, could no doubt achieve

SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 247

something even greater. He must have a very good
opinion of himself who believes that he can pay court
acceptably in this way ; and the one who is praised must
have a very low opinion of himself if he finds pleasure in
such tributes.

213. No! Good, earnest, steady German men and
countrymen, far from our spirit be such a lack of under
standing, and far be such defilement from our language,
which is formed to express the truth. Let us leave it
to foreigners to burst into jubilation and amazement
at every new phenomenon, to make a new standard of
greatness every decade, to create new gods, and to speak
blasphemies in order to please human beings. Let our A
standard of greatness be the old one : that alone is great
which is capable of receiving the ideas which always bring
nothing but salvation upon the peoples, and which is
inspired by those ideas. But, as regards the living, let '
us leave the verdict to the judgment of posterity.

FOURTEENTH ADDRESS

CONCLUSION

214. IN the addresses which I conclude to-day, I have
spoken aloud to you first of all, but I have had in view
the whole German nation, and my intention has been to
gather round me, in the room in which you are bodily
present, everyone in the domain of the German language
who is able to understand me. If I have succeeded in
throwing into any heart which has beaten here in front of
me a spark which will continue to glow there and to
influence its life, it is not my intention that these hearts ••<
should remain apart and lonely ; I want to gather to them_
from over the whole of our common soil men of similaii v
sentiments and 'resolutions, and to link them together] f
so that at this central point a: single, continumis/7nd
tmceaslflg^rlame ot patriotic disposition may be^kmdled,
wliidi Will spread over the whole soil of "the '"fatherianS
to its utmost boundaries^ These addresses have not been
meant for the entertainment of indolent ears and eyes
in the present age ; on the contrary, I want to know once
for all, and everyone of like disposition shall know it with
me, whether there is anyone besides ourselves whose way^of__
thinking is akin to ours. Every German who still believes
himself to be a member of a nation, who thinks highly
and nobly of that nation, hopes for it, ventures, endures,
and suffers for it, shall at last have the uncertainty of his

248

CONCLUSION 249

belief removed ; he shall see clearly whether he is right
or is only a fool and a dreamer ; from now on he shall
either pursue his way with the glad consciousness of
certainty, or else firmly and vigorously renounce a
fatherland here below, and find in the heavenly one his
only consolation. To them, not as individuals in our
everyday limited life, but as representatives of the nation,
and so through their ears to the whole nation, these
addresses make this appeal :—

215. Centuries have come and gone since you were last
convoked as you are to-day ; in such numbers ; in a cause
so great, so urgent, and of such concern to all and every
one ; so entirely as a nation and as Germans. Never
again will the offer come to you in this way. If you now
take no heed and withdraw into yourselves, if you again
let these addresses go by you as if they were meant merely
to tickle your ears, or if you regard them as something
strange and fabulous, then no human being will ever take
you into account again. Hearken nowr at last ; reflect
now at last. Go not from your place this time at least
without first making a firm resolution ; and let everyone
who hears my voice make this resolution by himself and
for himself, just as if he were alone and had to do everything
alone. If very many individuals think in this way, there
will soon be formed a large community which will be
fused into a single close-connected force. But if, on the
contrary, each one, leaving himself out, puts his hope in
the rest and leaves the matter to others, then there will
be no others, and all together will remain as they were
before. Make it on the spot, this resolution. Do not
say : " Let us rest a little longer, let us sleep and dream a
little longer, till the improvement comes of itself." It
will never come of itself. He who has once let yesterday
go by, which would have been a more convenient time

250 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

for reflection, and yet cannot use his will to-day, will be
still less able to do so to-morrow. Every delay makes us
all the more indolent, and cradles us still more deeply
in the habit of familiarity with our wretched condition.
Then, too, the external motives to reflection can never be
stronger or more urgent. He who is not aroused by the
present situation has beyond a doubt lost all power of
feeling. You are convoked to make a firm and final resolu
tion and decision ; and in no wise to give a command, an
order, an incitement to others, but an incitement to your
selves. You must make a resolution of a kind which each
one can carry out only by himself and in his own person.
In this matter the leisurely indication of an intention does
not suffice, nor the will to exert a will at some future
time, nor yet the indolent resolve to submit some time
or other to what is proposed, if one should meanwhile of
one's self have become a better man. No, you are called
upon to make a resolve that will itself be part of your
life, a resolve that is itself a deed within you, that endures
there and continues to hold sway without being moved or
shaken, a resolve that never grows cold, until it hasj
attained its object.

216. Or is, perchance, the root, from which alone such
a resolution can spring and have an influence on life,
completely destroyed, and has it disappeared ? Is your
whole being in truth and in fact thinned and reduced
to an empty shadow, without sap and blood and power
of motion ; reduced to a dream in which bright visions
are begotten and busily pursue each other, but where the
body lies stiff and as it were dead ? This age has long been
told to its face, and has heard it repeated in every shape
and form, that this or something like it is the general
opinion. Its spokesmen have believed that people who
said this only wanted to slander them, and have regarded

CONCLUSION 251

it as a challenge to themselves to slander in return,
supposing that the natural order of things would thereby
be restored. Yet there has not been the least trace of
any alteration or improvement. But if you have under
stood the indictment, if it has succeeded in making you
indignant, then by your acts give the lie to those who
think and speak thus of you ; show before the eyes of
all the world that you are different, and then those men
in the eyes of all the world will be convicted of untruth.
Perchance it was precisely with the intention of being
refuted by you in this way, and because they despaired
of any other means of rousing you, that they spoke of
you as harshly as they did. If that was the case, how
much better disposed towards you they were than those
who flatter you, in order that you may be kept in sloth
and quietude and all-unheeding thoughtlessness !

However weak and powerless you may be, never before
has clear and calm reflection been made so easy for you as
at the present time. The thing that really plunged us
into confusion as to our position, that caused our thought
lessness, our blind acquiescence in all that happened, was
our sweet self-satisfaction ; we were satisfied with our
selves and our way of life. Things had gone on all right
hitherto and continued to go on just the same. If anyone
challenged us to reflection, we triumphantly pointed out
to him, in place of any other refutation, our existence and
continuance, which came about without any reflection
on our part. But things went on all right solely because
we had not been put to the test. Since then we have gone
through it. Since that time the deceptions, the illusions,
the false consolation, by which we all led each other
mutually astray, have surely collapsed. The inborn
prejudices which, without proceeding from any one place,
spread themselves like a natural fog over everyone, and

252 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

enveloped everyone in the same twilight — surely they have
vanished now ! That twilight no longer binds our eyes ;
moreover, it can no longer serve us as an excuse. Here
we stand now, bare and empty, with all external coverings
and hangings taken away, just as we are ourselves. Now
there must be revealed what that self is or is not.

217. Perhaps someone may come forward from among
you and ask me : " What gives you alone of all German
men and writers the special task, the vocation, and the
right to assemble us and press your views upon us ?
Would not each one of the thousands of Germany's
men of letters have just: as much right to it as you ?
Not one of them does it, but you alone thrust yourself
forward." I answer that, of course, everyone would have
the same right as I have, that I am doing it solely because
not one of them has done it before me, and that I would
be silent if another had already done it. This was the
first step to the goal of a thorough reformation ; someone
or other had to take it. I was the first one to see it
vividly ; therefore it fell to me to take the first step.
After this some other step will be the second ; all have
now the same right to take this step ; but once again
it will in fact be one man, and one man only, who does
take it. There must always be one who is first ; then let
him be first who can !

218. Without troubling yourselves about this objection,
let your gaze rest for a little while upon the view to which
we have already conducted you, viz., in what an enviable
condition Germany would be, and the world as well, if
the former had known how to make use of the good for
tune due to its position and to recognize its advantages.
Let your eye dwell upon what both are now, and make
yourselves feel to the quick the pain and indignation
which must seize every noble-minded man when he

CONCLUSION 253

beholds it. Turn back then to your own selves and see
that it is you whom time will free from the errors of the
preceding ages and from whose eyes it will remove the
mist, if you permit it ; that it is granted to you, as to
no generation before you, to undo what has been done
and to delete the discreditable intervening period from
the pages of German history.

Review in your own minds the various conditions
between which you now have to make a choice. If
you continue in your dullness and helplessness, all the
evils of serfdom are awaiting you ; deprivations, humilia
tions, the scorn and arrogance of the conqueror ; you will
be driven and harried in every corner, because you are
in the wrong and in the way everywhere ; until, by the
sacrifice of your nationality and your language, you have
purchased for yourselves some subordinate and petty
place, and until in this way you gradually die out as a
people. If, on the other hand, you bestir yourselves and
play the man, you will continue in a tolerable and hon
ourable existence, and you will see growing up among
and around you a generation that will be the promise for
you and for the Germans of most illustrious renown.
You will see in spirit the German name rising by means
of this generation to be the most glorious among all
peoples ; you will see this nation the regenerator and
re-creator of the world.

219. It depends on you whether you want to be the
end, and to be the last of a generation unworthy of respect
and certain to be despised by posterity even beyond its
due — a generation of whose history (if, indeed, there can
be any history in the barbarism that will then begin) your
descendants will read the end with gladness, saying that
its fate was just ; or whether you want to be the beginning
and the point of development for a new age glorious

254 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

beyond all your conceptions, and the generation from whom
posterity will reckon the year of their salvation. Reflect
that you are the last in whose power this great alteration
lies. You have, even in your day, heard the Germans
spoken of as one ; you have seen or have heard of a visible
sign of their unity, an empire and an imperial federa
tion ; among you voices have made themselves heard
from time to time which were inspired by the higher
love of fatherland. Those who come after you will
accustom themselves to other ideas, will adopt alien
forms and another way of conducting life and affairs ;
and how long will it be then before there is no one living
who has seen or heard of Germans ?

220. What is demanded of you is not much. You are
only bidden to undertake to pull yourselves together for
a short time, and to think over that which lies immediately
and openly before your eyes. On that alone you are to
form a definite opinion, to remain true to it, and utter
and express it in your own immediate surroundings.
It is an assumption, it is our sure conviction, that the
result of this thinking will prove to be the same with all
of you, and that, if only you really think and do not go on
in the old heedlessness, you will think alike; that, if
only you put on the spirit and do not remain on the level
of mere vegetable existence, unity and concord of spirit
will come of itself. But, once that has come about,
everything else that we need will be added to us without
our seeking.

Now, this effort of thought is in fact demanded of each
one of you, who is still capable of thinking for himself
about a thing that lies plainly before his eyes. You have
time for it ; there is no question of the present moment
bewildering you or taking you by surprise ; the documents
recording the negotiations conducted with you still lie

CONCLUSION 255

before your eyes. Do not lay them aside until you have
made up your minds. Do not, O, do not allow yourselves
to relax by trusting in others or in anything whatever
that lies outside yourselves, nor yet by the foolish wisdom
of the time, which holds that the ages make themselves,
without any human aid, by means of some unknown force.
These addresses have not grown weary of impressing upon
you that nothing whatever can help you except yourselves ;
and they find it necessary to repeat it up to the last
moment. It may be that rain and dew and fruitful
or unfruitful seasons are made by a force unknown to us
and not in our power ; but all human relationships, the
whole special province of man, are made only by men
themselves and by absolutely no power outside them.
Only when they are all equally blind and ignorant do
they fall victims to this hidden power ; but it rests with
them not to be blind and ignorant. It is true that
the degree of evil, be it greater or less, which will befall
us may depend partly on that unknown power ; but it
will depend very specially on the understanding and good
will of those to whom we are subjected. But whether
it will ever go well with us again depends entirely on
ourselves ; and it is certain that no well-being whatever
will come to us again unless we procure it for ourselves,
and especially unless each one of us, in his own way,
acts and works as if he were alone, and as if upon him
alone depended the salvation of generations to come.

221. This is what you have to do. These addresses
solemnly appeal to you to do it without delay.

To you, young men, they solemnly appeal. I, who
have long ceasecTTo" belong to your ranks, am of the
opinion, which I have expressed in these addresses, that
you are even more capable than others of any thought
that lies outside the common round, and more susceptible

256 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

to all that is good and vigorous, because your age lies
nearer to the years of childlike innocence and of nature.
Quite otherwise is this trait in you regarded by the majority
of the older world. They accuse you of arrogance, of
hasty and presumptuous judgment exceeding your powers,
of always thinking yourselves in the right, of a mania for
innovation. Yet they only smile good-humouredly at
these failings of yours. All this, they think, is founded
solely on your lack of knowledge of the world — that is to
say, of the general state of human corruption ; for they have
no eyes for anything else in the world. You have courage
now, they think, only because you hope to find helpers of
like mind, and do not know the grim and stiff-necked
resistance which will be offered to your plans for the
better. Just wait a little while, they say ; when once the
youthful fire of your imagination has died away, when you
have come to learn the general state of selfishness, sloth-
fulness, and dislike for work, when you yourselves have
once properly tasted the sweetness of going on in an accus
tomed groove, then the desire and the will to be better
and cleverer than all the rest will depart from you. This
good hope which they have of you is not based on thin
air ; they have found it confirmed in their own person.
They must confess that in the days of their foolish youth
they dreamed of improving the world, just as you do
now ; nevertheless, as they grew more mature they became
as tame and peaceful as you see them at present. I
believe them ; I have myself, even in my own not very
long experience, seen young men, who at first aroused
other hopes, none the less at a later stage fully come up to
the well-meaning expectations of this age of maturity.
Do this no longer, young men ; for if you do, how can a
better generation ever begin ? The glow of youth will,
it is true, fall from you, and the flame of your imagina-

CONCLUSION 257

live power will cease to find nourishment in itself ; but
seize this flame and concentrate it by clear thinking,
make the art of such thinking your very own and you will
have added unto you the finest equipment of man,
which is character. In and by that clear thinking main
tain the source of the eternal bloom of youth ; however
much your body may grow old or your knees tremble,
your mind will re-create itself in ever-renewed freshness,
and your character will stand fast and upright. Embrace
at once the opportunity that here presents itself to you ;
think clearly over the subject that is proffered to you for
reflection ; the clearness that has dawned for you on
this one point will gradually spread itself over all the,
others too.

222. These addresses appeal solemnly to you, old men.
You have just heard what people think of you ; they say
it to your face, and I, the speaker, frankly add thereto for
myself that, with regard to the great majority among
you, apart from the exceptions which are undoubtedly
not rare and which are all the more worthy of honour,
what people say is entirely justified. Go through the
history of the last two or three decades ; everyone except
you yourselves is agreed (and even among yourselves
each one is agreed except as regards the special branch
with which he himself is concerned) that, always apart
from the exceptions and with reference only to the majority,
in every branch, in science as well as in the affairs of life,
more inefficiency and selfishness was found among the
older men than anywhere else. The whole contemporary
world looked on and saw how every man that wished for
a better and more perfect state of things had to fight, not
only against his own lack of clearness and his other
environment — his greatest fight was against you ; the
world saw that you had firmly resolved that nothing must

17

258 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

come to the front which you had not known about or
done, that you regarded every stirring of thought as an
insult to your intelligence, and that you left no power
unused by which you might become the victors in this
fight against the better, as indeed you were generally
the victors. Thus, you were the force which held up
all the improvements which kindly nature offered to us
from her ever-youthful lap, until you were gathered to
the dust (dust that you were already !), and the younger
generation in the war with you had become like you and
took over your old way of administration. You only
need to act now as you have hitherto acted in regard to
all proposals for improvement ; you only need to put
higher than the common weal your vanity in regarding
it as a point of honour that there shall be nothing under
heaven that you have not already discovered ; then, by
this last fight you will be spared any further fighting ;
no improvement will take place, but deterioration will
follow on deterioration, so that you will still have many
an occasion to rejoice.

I do not want you to think that I despise old age as
such, or run it down. If only the source of original life
and of its continued movement has by means of freedom
been taken up into life, clearness grows, and power with
it, so long as life lasts. Such a life becomes better as it
is lived, the clay of its earthly origin falling away more and
more ; it ennobles itself and reaches upwards towards
eternal life and blossoms out to meet it. In such a life
experience does not reconcile itself to evil, but only
makes clearer the means, and brings more skill in the art,
of fighting evil triumphantly. For the deterioration due
to increasing age, the times we live in are solely to blame ;
such deterioration must be the result wherever society
is very corrupt. It is not nature that corrupts us ; nature

CONCLUSION 259

creates us in innocence ; society corrupts us. He who once
surrenders himself to its influence must in the nature
of things become worse and worse, the longer he is
exposed to this influence. It would be worth while
to examine from this point of view the history of other
ages that have been very corrupt, and to see, for example,
whether under the government of the Roman emperors
what was bad did not become worse and worse with
increasing age.

So, among you old men and men of experience it is
first to those who form the exception that these addresses
solemnly appeal. Support, strengthen, and give counsel
in this matter to the younger generation who reverently
direct their gaze towards you. But to you others who
form the majority the solemn appeal of these addresses
is this : you are not asked to help, but just for this once
do not interfere ; do not put yourselves in the way, as
you have always done hitherto, with your wisdom and
your thousand grave objections. This matter, like every
other matter of reason in the world, has not a thousand
aspects, but only one ; and that is one of the thousand
things you do not know. If your wisdom could bring
salvation, it would have saved us before this, for it is you
who have advised us hitherto. That is now, like every
thing else, in vain, and shall not be brought up against
you any more. But learn at long last to know yourselves,
and be silent.

223. These addresses appeal solemnly to you, men of
business. With few exceptions you have hitherto been
at heart hostile to abstract thought, and to every science
that wished to be something for its own sake, although you
put on an air of superiority and treated all that sort of
thing with contempt. You kept the men who pursued
such subjects, and the proposals they made, as far from

26o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

you as you possibly could ; to be called lunatics, or
advised to betake themselves to a madhouse, was the
thanks they could most generally reckon on getting from
you. They for their part did not dare to express them
selves about you with the same frankness, because they
were dependent on you ; but, in their inmost hearts, their
true opinion of you was this, that with few exceptions
you are shallow babblers and puffed-up braggarts, half-
educated men who merely ran through a course at school,
blind men who have to feel their way and creep along in
the old groove, and who neither want nor are capable of
anything else. By your actions convict them of lying.
For this purpose seize the opportunity now offered to
you ; lay aside your contempt of profound thought and
science ; let yourselves be told what you do not know,
then listen and learn ; otherwise your accusers will carry
their point.

224. These addresses appeal solemnly to you, thinkers,
scholars, and men of letters, to such of you as are still
worthy of the name. The reproach that men of affairs
brought against you was in a certain sense not unjust.
Often you went on in the sphere of pure thought too
unconcernedly, without troubling yourselves about the
actual world, or trying to find out how the two might be
brought into connection ; you described your own world,
and left the actual one too much alone, despising and
scorning it. It is true that all regulation and formation
of actual life must proceed from a higher regulating idea,
and that going along in the accustomed way is not enough ;
that is an eternal truth, and in God's name crushes with
unconcealed contempt everyone who dares to occupy him
self with affairs without knowing this. Nevertheless,
between the idea and the act of introducing it into every
separate form of life there lies a great gulf. To fill up

CONCLUSION 261

this gulf is not only the work of the man of affairs, who
indeed must previously have learnt enough to be able
to understand you, but the work also of you, who in the
world of thought must not forget life. At this point
both of you meet. Instead of looking askance at each
other across the gulf and depreciating each other, rather
let each party be zealous to fill up the gulf from his side
and so pave the way to union. Finally, comprehend
that both of you are as necessary to each other as head
and arm are necessary to each other.

These addresses appeal solemnly in other respects as well
to you, thinkers, scholars, and men of letters, to such of you
as are still worthy of the name. Your complaints about
the general shallowness, thoughtlessness, and vagueness,
about conceitedness and the inexhaustible flow of idle
chatter, about the contempt for seriousness and thorough
ness that prevail in all classes, may be true, as indeed they
are. But then, what class is it which has brought up all
these classes, which has turned everything scientific into
a game for them, and has trained them from their earliest
youth to that conceitedness and idle chatter ? Who is it
that continues to instruct the generations that have left
school ? The most obvious cause of the stupidity of the
age is that it has read itself stupid with the works which
you have written. Why do you, nevertheless, continue
to make it your business to keep such indolent people
entertained, regardless of the fact that they have learnt
nothing and want to learn nothing ? Why do you call
them " the public," flatter them by making them your
judges, set them on against your rivals, and seek by every
means to win over this blind and confused mob to your
side ? Finally, why do you give them, even in your
reviewing establishments and journals, not only the
material, but also the model for their hasty judgments, by

262 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

delivering judgment yourselves as the fancy seizes you,
without any connecting principle and usually without
taste, in a way that the meanest of your readers could
equal ? If you do not all think like this, if even yet there
are better-disposed writers among you, why do they not
unite to put an end to the evil ? Especially with refer
ence to our men of business ; they ran through a course
at school under you ; you say it yourselves. Why did
you not make use of the time they spent with you to instil
into them at any rate some silent respect for the sciences,
and especially to shatter betimes the conceit of high-born
youths and to show them that, when it comes to thinking,
neither rank nor birth are of any avail ? If perchance
even at that time you flattered them and gave them
prominence beyond their merits, you must now bear the
burden of what you yourselves have created.

They are willing to pardon you, these addresses, on
the assumption that you had not grasped the importance
of your business ; they solemnly appeal to you to make
yourselves acquainted from this very hour with its impor
tance, and no longer to carry it on as if it were merely a
trade. Learn to respect yourselves, show by your actions
that you do so, and the world will respect you. The first
proof of it you will give by the influence you yourselves
exert on the resolution that is here proposed, and by the
way in which you conduct yourselves in connection
therewith.

225. These addresses appeal solemnly to you, princes
of Germany. Those who in their dealings with you act
as if no one ought to say anything whatever to you, or
could have occasion to say anything, are contemptible
flatterers ; they wickedly slander you and no one else ;
put them far from you. The truth is that you are born
just as ignorant as all the rest of us, and that you must

CONCLUSION 263

listen and learn just as we must, if you are to emerge from
this state of natural ignorance. Your share in bringing
about the fate that has befallen you together with your
peoples has been stated here in the mildest and, we
believe, the only just and equitable way ; and unless you
are willing to listen to flattery only, but never to the
truth, you can have no complaint to make against these
addresses. Let all this be forgotten, in the same way that
all the rest of us wish that our share of the blame may be
forgotten. For you too, as for all of us, a new life now
begins. O, that this voice of mine might penetrate to
you through the whole environment which is wont to
make you inaccessible ! With proud self-reliance it may
say to you : you rule over peoples more loyal, more docile,
more worthy of happiness than any princes have ever
ruled over in any age or any nation. They have a sense
of freedom and a capacity for it ; but they followed you
into a bloody war against what seemed to them freedom,
because you willed it. Some among you willed otherwise
later, and they followed you into what must have seemed
to them a war of extirpation against one of the last
remnants of German independence and autonomy, again
because you willed it so. Since then they have been bearing
and enduring the oppressive burden of our common woes ;
and they cease not to be loyal to you, to cleave to you
with intense devotion, and to love you as their divinely
appointed guardians. If you could only observe them
without their knowing it ; if you could only escape from
that environment, which does not always present the
loveliest aspect of humanity to you, and descend into the
houses of the citizen and the cottages of the peasant,
there to follow and reflect upon the quiet and secluded
life of these classes of society, with whom the qualities
of loyalty and uprightness, so rare now among the upper

264 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

classes, seem to have taken refuge ; O, then, beyond a
doubt you would be filled with a resolve to think more
earnestly than ever how help might be brought to them.
These addresses have suggested to you a means of help
which they deem certain, thoroughgoing, and decisive.
Let your counsellors take counsel among themselves as
to whether they too are of this opinion, or whether they
know a better means ; only it must be equally decisive.
But the conviction that something must happen, and must
happen without delay, and that something thorough
going and decisive must happen, and that the time for
half-measures and temporary expedients is over, this
conviction I would have these addresses bring forth in
you yourselves, if they can, seeing that they still have
the greatest confidence in your uprightness.

226. To all you Germans, whatever position you may
occupy in society, these addresses solemnly appeal ; let
every one of you, who can think, think first of all about
the subject here suggested, and let each do for it
what lies nearest to him individually in the position
he occupies.

227. Your forefathers unite themselves with these
addresses, and make a solemn appeal to you. Think that
in my voice there are mingled the voices of your ancestors
of the hoary past, who with their own bodies stemmed
the onrush of Roman world-dominion, who with their
blood won the independence of those mountains, plains,
and rivers which under you have fallen a prey to the
foreigner. They call to you : " Act for us ; let the
memory of us which you hand on to posterity be just
as honourable and without reproach as it was when it
came to you, when you took pride in it and in your
descent from us. Until now, the resistance we made has
been regarded as great and wise and noble ; we seemed

CONCLUSION 265

the consecrated and the inspired in the divine world-
purpose. If our race dies out with you, our honour will
be turned to shame and our wisdom to foolishness.
Fof if, indeed, the German stock is to be swallowed up in
Roman civilization, it were better that it had fallen before
the Rome of old than before a Rome of to-day. The
former we resisted and conquered ; by the latter you
have been ground to dust. Seeing that this is so, you
shall now not conquer them with temporal weapons ;
your spirit alone shall rise up against them and stand
erect. To you has fallen the greater destiny, to found
the empire of the spirit and of reason, and completely to
annihilate the rule of brute physical force in the world.
If you do this, then you are worthy of your descent from

us."

228. Then, too, there mingle with these voices the
spirits of your more recent forefathers, those who fell in
the holy war for the freedom of belief and of religion.
" Save our honour too," they cry to you. " To us it
was not entirely clear what we fought for ; besides the
lawful resolve not to let ourselves be dictated to by exter
nal force in matters of conscience, there was another
and a higher spirit driving us, which never fully revealed
itself to us. To you it is revealed, this spirit, if you have
the power of vision in the spiritual world ; it beholds you
with eyes clear and sublime. The varied and confused
mixture of sensuous and spiritual motives that has hitherto
ruled the world shall be displaced, and spirit alone, pure
and freed from all sensuous motives, shall take the helm of
human affairs. It was in order that this spirit might
have freedom to develop and grow to independent
existence — it was for this that we poured forth our blood.
It is for you to justify and give meaning to our sacrifice,
by setting this spirit to fulfil its purpose and to rule the

266 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

world. If this does not come about as the final goal to
which the whole previous development of our nation has
been tending, then the battles we fought will turn out
to be a vain and fleeting farce, and the freedom of
conscience and of spirit that we won is a vain word,
if from now onwards spirit and conscience are to be no

more."

229. There comes a solemn appeal to you from your
descendants not yet born. " You boast of your fore
fathers," they cry to you, " and link yourselves with pride
to a noble line. Take care that the chain does not
break off with you ; see to it that we, too, may boast of
you and use you as an unsullied link to connect ourselves
with the same illustrious line. Do not force us to be
ashamed of our descent from you as from base and
slavish barbarians ; do not compel us to conceal our
origin, or to fabricate a strange one and to take a strange
name, lest we be at once and without further examina
tion rejected and trodden underfoot. As the next
generation that proceeds from you turns out to be,
so will your reputation be in history ; honourable, if
they bear honourable witness for you, but disgraceful
even beyond your due, if your descendants may not speak
for you, and the conqueror makes your history. Never
yet has a conqueror had sufficient inclination or sufficient
knowledge to judge the conquered justly. The more
he depreciates them, the more just does he himself stand
out. Who can know what great deeds, what excellent
institutions, what noble customs of many a people in the
ancient world have fallen into oblivion, because their
descendants were forced under the yoke, while the
conqueror wrote an account of them that suited his
purpose, and there was none to contradict him ! "

230. A solemn appeal comes to you even from foreign

CONCLUSION 267

countries, in so far as they still understand themselves
even to the slightest extent, and still have an eye for
their true advantage. Yea, in all nations there are still
some souls who cannot even yet believe that the great
promises of a realm of justice, reason, and truth for
the human race are vain and naught but a baseless delu- i
sion, and who, therefore, assume that the present age of
iron is but a transition to a better state. These souls,
and in them the whole of modern humanity, count upon
you. A large part of modern humanity is descended •
from us, and the rest have received from us their religion i
and all their civilization. The former solemnly appeal
to us by the soil of our common fatherland, which was
their cradle, too, and which they have left free for us,
the latter by the culture they have received from us as
the pledge of a loftier bliss — both appeal to us to preserve
ourselves for them too and for their sake, just as we have
always been, and not to let the whole organism of the new
race that has arisen be violently deprived of this member
so important to it ; so that, when they come to need our
counsel, our example, and our co-operation in striving
towards the true goal of earthly life, they will not miss us,
to their pain.

231. All ages, all wise and good men who have ever
breathed upon this earth, all their thoughts and intuitions
of something loftier, mingle with these voices and sur
round you and lift up imploring hands to you ; even, if
one may say so, providence and the divine plan in creat
ing a race of men, a plan which exists only to be thought
out by men and to be brought by men into the actual
world — the divine plan, I say, solemnly appeals to you
to save its honour and its existence. Whether those were
right who believed that mankind must always grow
better, and that thoughts of a true order and worth of man

268 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION

were no idle dreams, but the prophecy and pledge of the
real world that is to be — whether they are to be proved
right, or those who continue to slumber in an animal and
vegetable existence and mock at every flight into higher
worlds — to give a final and decisive judgment on this
point is a work for you. The old world with its glory
and its greatness, as well as its defects, has fallen by its
own unworthiness and by the violence of your fathers.
If there is truth in what has been expounded in these
addresses, then are you of all modern peoples the one in
whom the seed of human perfection most unmistakably
lies, and to whom the lead in its development is committed.
If you perish in this your essential nature, then there
perishes together with you every hope of the whole
human race for salvation from the depths of its miseries.
Do not console yourselves with an opinion based on thin
air and depending on the mere recurrence of cases that
have already happened ; do not hope that when the old
civilization has fallen a new one will arise once more
out of a semi-barbarous nation on the ruins of the first.
In ancient times there was such a people in existence,
equipped with every requirement for such a destiny and
quite well known to the civilized people, who have left
us their description of it ; and they themselves, if they
had been able to imagine their own downfall, would have
been able to discover in this people the means of recon
struction. To us also the whole surface of the globe is
quite well known and all the peoples that dwell thereon.
But do we know a people akin to the ancestral stock of
the modern world, of whom we may have the same
expectation ? I think that everyone who does not merely
base his hopes and beliefs on idle dreaming, but investi
gates thoroughly and thinks, will be bound to answer this
question with a NO. There is, therefore, no way out ;

CONCLUSION 269

if you go under, all humanity goes under with you, with
out hope of any future restoration.

This it was, gentlemen, which at the end of these
addresses I wanted and was bound to impress upon you,
who to me are the representatives of the nation, and
through you upon the whole nation.

FINIS

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DD Fichte, Johann Gottlieb

199 Addresses to the German

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